


All For One

by ironychan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-03-15 06:43:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 121,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3437366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironychan/pseuds/ironychan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While tracking down a weapons-smuggling operation in Florida, Steve Rogers stumbles across a dead body - HIS dead body.  When he, Sam, and Natasha investigate, they discover a conspiracy bigger and more bizarre than anything HYDRA has thrown at them yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Body in the Bay

At the simultaneous ages of twenty-nine and ninety-six, Steve Rogers would not have believed anything could surprise him anymore. He'd fought Nazis, gods, aliens, and supermen. He'd looked into a hole in space itself and then gone out for lunch after. He'd seen friends die and be resurrected, men become monsters, and machines become men. Steve knew better than to think he'd seen everything there was to see, but he did feel pretty jaded when it came to bizarre events. Things could anger him, disappoint him, sadden him – but nothing could really _shock_ him.

Or so he thought, until he found his own corpse floating face-down in Tampa Bay.

The worst part was, he didn't even realize it at the time. He was driving across the Courtney Campbell Causeway when he happened to glance to the right and notice a suspiciously humanoid shape in the shallows. Most people would probably have assumed it was an illusion – it was the same colour as the white sand – but Steve pulled over onto the grassy median and scrambled down the rocks for a better look. There was the naked body of a young man or a boy, his skin chalk-white and his shaggy blond hair drifting like seaweed on the gently lapping waves. Steve's first instinct was to wade out and try to rescue the man, but he quickly realized that this person was beyond help. He swallowed his heroics, and called the police instead.

By the time they arrived, Steve was already long gone. He needed to stay under the public radar until he'd rooted out the last remnants of HYDRA, and anyway, Sam was waiting for him in Tampa. They had leads to follow, sources to meet, fugitives to track. The body in the bay was worth reporting, but Steve had no reason to believe it was anything but the result of a random accident or crime.

* * *

At eight forty the next morning, Steve and Sam were eating breakfast in the Waffle House across the parking lot from their motel. They had an important day ahead – a source who called himself RedWolff06 had promised to meet them at the Pier in St. Petersburg, on the other side of the bay, in order to offer details on a cargo of HYDRA weapons that would be leaving for Argentina on a ship called the _Albatross_. Whoever he was, the man had been maddeningly vague, and it was only a feeling that he knew far more than he was saying that had persuaded Steve and Sam to come meet him at all.

The fact that RedWolff06 himself had now been out of communication with them for four days wasn't helping. Steve checked his email yet again, as Sam stepped away to grab a copy of the day's _Tampa Bay Times_ , but there was nothing. Steve was beginning to wonder if the whole thing were the work of a crank who just wanted attention.

He looked up from his phone as Sam dropped the paper on the table and sat back down across from him. “They've got a picture of that kid you found in the bay yesterday,” Sam said, pointing at the paper with one hand while grabbing his orange juice with the other. “Looks like they haven't identified him yet.”

“Yeah? Let's see.” Steve unfolded the paper and pulled out the 'local' section for a look.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was aware of Sam's surprised exclamation and felt hot liquid soaking into his right sleeve from his spilled coffee mug, but these things seemed distant and immaterial. Instead, time stopped as Steve stared at the identikit drawing the police had released of the victim, well and truly _shocked_ for the first time in ages. It was a man in his early twenties with a thin, pale face, who looked like he didn't eat enough and probably didn't get full benefit out of what he _did_ eat. There was blond hair, a little long. Blue eyes, slightly unfocused. A long nose, narrow jaw, and full lower lip. It was a face Steve hadn't seen in years no matter _how_ he measured the passage of time, but it was one he was intimately familiar with. 

_His_ face. His thin, anemic face from before the serum.

While Sam grabbed a handful of napkins to mop up the coffee, Steve scanned the article that accompanied the sketch. An anonymous collar had alerted police to the body washed up on the causeway. No identification had been found on the corpse, and the closest thing it had to clothing was one contact lens in the left eye. The young man's fingerprints and DNA were not on file. The body had sustained extensive injuries, some of them postmortem, but the exact cause of death was not yet determined. Tampa Bay police were eager for any leads the public could offer.

“Hey, are you all right?” asked Sam, wadding up the coffee-soaked napkins to throw away.

Steve blinked as he suddenly remembered the outside world. He raised his head, and held up the paper next to his own face so that Sam could compare the portrait. “What do you think?”

Sam hadn't noticed the resemblance before – now he did. “A relative?” he guessed.

“I don't have any,” Steve replied. “I was an only child. My aunt was a spinster, and Mom's family were all in Ireland except for one guy who settled in Australia.” Maybe somebody from his mother's side had immigrated since. Or maybe this man, like thousands of others every year, had been in Florida for a vacation. Maybe the resemblance was entirely coincidental... but Steve didn't trust coincidences. What he did trust was his gut, and it was telling him that this needed investigating.

“I'm gonna go check it out,” he decided.

“You think it's connected with your friend?” asked Sam. “I mean, do you think he went after this guy because...”

_Because he looked like you?_ The unfinished question hung silently in the air, along with its only possible answer. As far as Steve knew, there was only one person on earth who would set out looking for Captain America and end up killing a five foot four inch kid with bad eyesight.

Steve wasn't willing to say that out loud, however, so he chewed and swallowed a bite of his omelet and then said, “you okay to go to St. Petersburg by yourself?”

“Unless our guy shows up with an army, I ought to be fine,” said Sam. “Where do we want to meet afterward?”

“How about the university?” Steve asked. “Easy to get to, lots of people around.”

“Right.” Sam nodded. “Watch your six.”

“I always do,” promised Steve. Especially if there were somebody out there killing young men who looked like him.

* * *

Since Sam had the longer drive to make, he took their rental car, while Steve got the number seven bus to the Tampa Police Department building by the airport. He used the transit time to come up with a false name and a story about his possible relationship to the dead man – Steve was much better at lying when he'd had time to _prepare_ – but he never got to use it. When he walked up to the front desk to introduce himself, the young man behind it did an impressive double-take and then scrambled to his feet, eyes wide.

“Oh my god!” the young officer exclaimed. “You're Captain America!”

The room fell silent and every head, whether it belonged to a police officer or a member of the public, turned towards him. Steve hunched a little, but it was too late to hide his face or deny his identity, not after an outburst like that. “Um, yes,” he said. “I am.”

“Oh, my god,” the kid repeated. “Can I have your autograph? Wait here, let me go to my locker!” He ran off without waiting for a reply, in such a hurry that he left his office chair gently spinning behind him. Steve stood facing the glass barrier, not wanting to make eye contact with any of the people who were whispering excitedly behind him. His appearance here would be all over the internet in a few minutes' time, and anybody he'd been managing to hide from would know exactly where he was.

Because he didn't look back, he barely saw when a female officer led a man in glasses through a door into the interior of the building, and for the moment at least, he did not register either individual's face.

A minute or so later, the young officer – his name badge said _Gonzales_ and his open mouth and large eyes made him look like a small, excitable dog – returned with a blue-gray t-shirt and a sharpie pen. “Here!” he said, eagerly pushing them through the slot in the glass. “Sign on the logo part, okay?”

Steve unfolded the shirt and found it had the bulls-eye of his shield on the front. He wondered if anybody held a copyright on the image, but decided it didn't matter – he just had to do what he came to do and get out of here. He wrote _Steve Rogers_ on it in his tall, looping handwriting, and after a moment of thought, added _Captain America_ in smaller letters beneath it.

“How's that?” he asked, passing it back to Officer Gonzales.

Gonzales held the shirt up and grinned. “That's _perfect_! Thanks so much! Hey, can I get a picture, too?” he added, pulling his phone out of his shirt pocket. “My brother will _never_ believe me if I tell him Captain America came to see me at work today!”

“Sure,” Steve said. He might a well – it certainly wouldn't be the first or last picture taken of him today. “Before you do, though, I need to ask you about the body they found by the Causeway yesterday.” He wasn't going to mention that he was the one who'd called it in. That would just lead the police to _ask_ questions instead of _answering_ them. “Is there any way I could get a closer look at the guy?”

“I can ask,” said Gonzales. “Do you know who he...” he paused, and his already large eyes got even wider as he, too, noticed the resemblance in retrospect. “Is he a relative or something?”

“He might be,” said Steve. “Has anyone identified him yet?”

“I'll ask.” Gonzales got up and stuck his head through a doorway behind his desk. “Hey, Lewis! We got a name for John Doe?”

“Yes, actually!” a woman called back in reply. “There's a man in there right now, says it's his stepbrother!”

“Really?” asked Steve. If it weren't for the glass partition, he would have leaned over the desk to try and see the speaker.

“Sounds like it,” Gonzales said. “Hey, Lewis!” he repeated into the back. “What's the guy's name?”

“The stiff or the stepbrother?” the woman asked.

“Stiff!”

“Who wants to know?”

“Captain America!”

There was a brief pause, and then the previously invisible Officer Lewis, a middle-aged black woman with her pewter-gray hair in a tight bun, appeared in the doorway behind Gonzales. She frowned as she looked Steve over. “Is the dead man a relative?” she asked.

“I... I don't think so. I don't know,” said Steve.  “How did he die?”

“We don't know yet,” said Officer Lewis. “The medical examiner hasn't submitted a report. Even if we did, we might not be able to tell you.” She gave Gonzales a pointed look, clearly unimpressed with his willingness to offer details to a stranger, Captain America or no. “In a homicide, there is always information that is held back. It's a way of checking the veracity of tips and leads.”

That was inconvenient, but Steve could see how it made sense. “Is there anything else you _can_ tell me?” he asked.

“Anything we can release will be in the news later,” said Lewis. “Can we be of any further assistance, Captain?”

“No,” said Steve. “Thanks anyway.” He turned to leave.

“Wait!” Gonzales stood up again. “Can I get that picture before you go?”

Gonzales pulled the newly autographed t-shirt on over his uniform, and Steve stood up straight and smiled awkwardly while the young officer got a member of the public to take several pictures of him with his hero. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw Officer Lewis showing somebody out of the building – a dark-haired man in a brown varsity-style jacket with patches on the elbows. Was that the stepbrother? Maybe _he_ could tell Steve something about the dead man: where he'd been, who he'd spoken to, and whether he'd been stalked by a man with a metal arm.

“Do you have twitter?” Gonzales asked.

“No, but I'll look into it,” Steve lied. “Thanks for your help.” He shook Gonzales' hand, and hurried outside, hoping to catch the stepbrother before he drove away.

There was a red and white cab parked among the police cars in the lot outside – the man in the varsity jacket was unlocking the driver's side door. Steve lengthened his stride. “Hey!” he called out. “Can I talk to you?” For a moment he wondered what he would do if this man's face _also_ turned out to be a version of Steve's own, but that wasn't likely – Officer Lewis had mentioned a _step_ brother, not a blood relation.

The man looked up, and Steve got his second heart-stopping surprise of the morning.

Another doppelganger... well, that would have been weird, but Steve had half-expected it. A lookalike of _Tony Stark_ – a younger lookalike, clean-shaved and wearing big black-rimmed glasses that would probably help disguise the resemblance at a casual glance, but a lookalike nonetheless – _that_ was a bit of a shock.

The sight of Steve seemed to shock the young man in return. After a few moments speechless staring, he wrenched the car door open and climbed in, plainly ready to flee.

“Wait!” Steve protested. He wasn't sure he could – or _should_ – believe what he was seeing. Maybe he was hallucinating. Maybe he had sunstroke. Maybe he'd nodded off at the breakfast table and in a moment Sam would wake him up to remind him they were supposed to be meeting RedWolff06 in St. Petersburg. But it certainly felt real enough as he dashed over to put an arm through the car door before the man could close it. “What's going on?” he asked.

“I'm on a schedule!” the man protested, putting his key in the ignition. The car began to ding a warning at him. “I have to get back to work!”

“Great, because I need a taxi!” said Steve. “I'm going to the University of Tampa. And I need to talk to you.”

The man in the glasses shook his head. “You really don't want to get involved in this,” he said.

“I'm already involved,” Steve said. “Your stepbrother died because he looked like me, didn't he? I want to know what I'm involved _in_!”

There was a long pause while the car engine idled and the man in the glasses chewed on his lip. Steve's eyes flicked up to the cab driver's license displayed on one of the sun shades: _Strong, Tobias Anthony_. Maybe he was being paranoid, but somehow it didn't sound like a real name.

At last, Strong sighed loudly and thumped on the steering while with the heels of both hands. “Okay, get in,” he said, reaching to unlock the passenger door.

“Thanks.” Steve obeyed, having to hunch up to fit into the front seat before finding the lever and pushing it into a more comfortable position. Whoever had sat there last had been far shorter than he, and he couldn't help wondering if it had been the dead man.

Strong locked the doors and rolled up the windows before he pulled out of the lot and turned right onto West Tampa Bay Boulevard, heading for Route 92. Steve expected him to say something, but the first few minutes of the drive went by in leaden silence. The interior of the car was stuffy, smelling of upholstery cleaner and the wet, slightly musty scent of the air conditioning. Strong did not look at his passenger. Instead, he sat up ramrod straight with his eyes not on the road, but on the vehicles around them, taking note of faces and license plates. Steve knew scared when he saw it, and whoever he was, this man was clearly scared _sick_.

“Was he really your stepbrother?” asked Steve, when it became clear that Strong would not be the first to speak.

Strong snorted. “What do _you_ think?”

Steve had thought as much. “So what's going on?”

“Pretty much exactly what it looks like,” said Strong.

“What's it supposed to look like? All I see is somebody's apparently murdering my clones!”

This was sarcasm. _Somebody's apparently murdering my clones_ was the shortest summary of the situation Steve could think of off the top of his head. It was also an exaggeration: after all, there was only _one_ dead doppelganger. But Strong nodded and said, “got it in one. That's why they pay you the big bucks.” The voice was Stark's, but Stark would have smiled as he said that. Strong was fighting not to collapse.

It took Steve a second to process the meaning of the quip. “What, _actual_ clones?” he asked. “Like... like on TV?”

“Something like that,” Strong agreed.

There was another silence. Chain-link fence and dense tropical foliage rolled by outside the car, and Steve let it blur into a haze of green as he tried to digest the implications. Clones... was that why the lookalike was small and sickly, because he'd inherited Steve's genetic weaknesses and not the serum's cure for them? He wanted to ask who had decided to clone him, but he had a dismal feeling he already knew the answer: SHIELD had turned out to have no particular qualms about _ending_ human lives, so why should they think twice about _creating_ them? _I asked for an army_ , Phillips had said, _and all I got was you_. Maybe somebody had believed they could have their army after all, only to be bitterly disappointed by the results.

“Listen,” said Strong, licking his lips. “If you want to raise hell about this, you go ahead, but leave me out of it. Leave _all_ of us out of it. After I drop you off, I'm going straight back to Orlando to pack. I don't want to find out I'm next on the hit list.”

“So why show up and identify the body?” asked Steve.

“Because that's what a _normal_ person would do when he hears that his room-mate is dead,” said Strong. “If I do that, maybe they'll think I don't suspect anything, and I can get a head start. Besides,” he added, “it'll get the thing out of the headlines. The quicker people think it's solved and forget about it, the less likely anyone will compare notes and realize that four guys with the same face have turned up dead in the last few months.”

Something cold dropped into the pit of Steve's stomach. “ _Four_?” How many _were_ there?

Strong nodded. “There was Scott Orchard over in Oregon. I never got the name of the one in Texas. I knew Oregon was Scott because they mentioned his appendectomy scar, but the one in Texas didn't have anything like that. Lucinda identified Dave Rodman in Ohio. And now Stan. I haven't heard from Rog for months, either, so maybe they got him, too, and it's just that nobody's heard about it yet.” He sighed heavily. “It's not like anybody reports it when one of us goes missing.”

At least four dead clones, possibly five. More live ones must exist – and clearly not all of them were based on Steve himself. “You're not 'one of them', though,” he said to Strong. “You're not...” there was no graceful way to phrase it. “You're not me. You're Stark.”

“I'm a _clone_ ,” Strong said. “ _I know it and I'm fine. I'm one and more are on the way._ ” These last two sentences were delivered in a singsong that suggested they were a reference to something Steve was not familiar with. The words _more are on the way_ sounded oddly threatening. Strong continued: “I don't know for sure that they're only after yours. It could just be that those are the ones I've heard about. There were more _of_ them to begin with, anyway.”

“How did they die?” asked Steve.

“I don't know,” said Strong.

“Who's killing them?” Steve tried. “Do you think it's HYDRA?”

“I think HYDRA's got better things to do,” said Strong. “Stan wasn't a danger to anybody, HYDRA least of all. He couldn't climb a flight of stairs without stopping for a breather. You know, he wouldn't even let me kill a _fly_? He used to catch them in a glass and put them outside.” Strong paused, and Steve glanced over to find him shiny-eyed, his adam's apple bobbing in his throat. “Stan _literally_ would not hurt a fly. He had nothing anybody wanted. We were just trying to get by.”

“Secrets?” suggested Steve. The newspaper article had suggested 'Stan' might have been tortured before he was killed.

Strong shrugged. “Maybe there's something _one_ of us has, or knows, and whoever this is, they're going down the list picking us _all_ off just to make sure. Maybe we're proprietary technology that somebody doesn't want in the wrong hands. I just don't _know_.” It was weird, watching and listening to him. The voice was Stark's, but the words and expressions were all wrong. Tony Stark would never have let Steve see him on the verge of tears, or hear that helplessly frustrated and frightened note in his voice.

“You haven't tried to find out?” asked Steve.

“I told you: I don't want to find out by dying,” said Strong.

From the police station to the University of Tampa was only twelve or fifteen minutes. Strong pulled over on University Drive, outside the fantastically ugly old building that housed the Henry B. Plant Museum, and unlocked the cab doors.

“University of Tampa,” he said. “This is your stop.”

His meaning was clear: he'd taken Steve where he'd said he would, and now he wanted him to leave. Steve didn't want to go. He had more questions – but Strong didn't seem to know very many of the answers Steve needed, and if this man's life were already in danger, Steve didn't want to make it worse by hanging around him. Anybody who was hunting down and killing _clones_ of superheroes probably wouldn't take kindly to any who showed up in the original flesh.

“How much do I owe?” asked Steve.

Strong hadn't had his taxi meter running on the trip from the police station, so he had to estimate. They settled on ten dollars, which Steve paid in cash.

“Where are you planning on going?” he asked, handing Strong two fives. “Have you thought about New York? Stark might...”

So far, Strong had seemed in no mood for humour, but now he cut Steve off with a short, sharp bark of laughter, very unlike the way Stark laughed. “Yeah,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Because _that_ won't attract attention at all, will it?”

“It might be the safest place,” Steve told him. Stark was an asshole, but he was an asshole who looked after anyone and anything he perceived as his own. Steve had to give the guy that.

“Not for me,” said Strong. “Stark's personal tech is all biologically keyed. Retina, fingerprints, voice. I know because I've worked on it. The only thing he'll see in me is a massive security breach.”

He was probably right, in which case Steve had no other ideas. “Good luck,” he offered.

Strong scowled as if this were an insult. “Thanks,” he snarled. “You, too.” And he closed the cab door with a slam.

It was only as the vehicle pulled away again that Steve realized he'd never found out how many clones were still alive, or confirmed who made them. All he had were suspicions and assumptions. He hadn't asked if there were any more like Strong, or any clones of Banner, or Barton, or the others, or why Strong had been working with Stark's gear, or how he'd wound up driving a taxi in Orlando. All he had were a few facts that made no sense, a frightened cab driver he would probably never see again, and an instinct that told him he'd stumbled onto something big and ominous – maybe as big and ominous as Project Insight had been.

This was no good. Steve couldn't afford to get sidetracked now. He and Sam already had a long list of things to investigate, and every lead they chased down seemed to offer up two more. HYDRA had tendrils everywhere, creeping into the fabric of society and government like a fungus. At the same time, though, this clone thing was not something Steve felt he could ignore. This was... this was _personal_. Somebody had made duplicates of him and those duplicates were being murdered, and Steve himself had not been consulted at any point in this process. He felt responsible, and he felt _used_. Steve didn't take kindly to being _used_ , even only by proxy.

He sat down on a bench facing the Plant Park pond to wait for Sam – and while he did, he got out his smartphone and did some research. The internet really was a fantastic invention, he reflected: in 1944, if Steve had wanted to look through reports of unidentified bodies in four different states, it would have taken days or weeks of travel and endless hours of shuffling through newspapers and police records. Now, he found the information he needed in under ten minutes.

John Doe, found under a bridge on the McKenzie River, just north of Eugene, Oregon. Five foot five, blond hair, blue eyes, appendectomy scar. Cause of death loss of blood from an injury to the throat. Officially unidentified.

John Doe, found in a swamp outside Texas City with his throat cut. Five foot four, blond hair, blue eyes. The death had been lumped in with a string of unsolved murders in the area, but if so it was the first male victim of what had so far been assumed to be a sexually-motivated serial killer. Body unidentified.

John Doe, at the bottom of a cliff overlooking Lake Erie in an expensive suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. Five foot four, blond hair, blue eyes. Cause of death an unspecified neck injury. Identified by his ex-girlfriend as David Rodman, a tech support worker. The girlfriend was wanted for questioning, but nobody had seen her in months. The case was considered open.

And of course, John Doe, face-down in the surf off the Courtney Campbell Causeway between Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida. Five foot four, blond hair, blue eyes. Identified by his stepbrother a Stanley Reeves, shipping clerk for a local company that sold film stock. Cause of death as yet undetermined.

A second search had just told Steve that there were six people named 'Tobias Strong' living in the United States, when he looked up and saw Sam approaching. The other man smiled and raised a hand in greeting, but paused when he saw the look on Steve's face.

“You okay, man?” Sam asked, sitting down on the bench beside him. “I know this is a cliché, but you look like you've seen a ghost.”

If anybody would know what Steve looked like upon seeing a ghost, he supposed that person was Sam Wilson. “I'm fine,” he said. “Just... I'll tell you what, you go first. Did you meet RedWolff06?”

Sam shook his head. “He stood me up. Didn't even text.”

Steve was almost relieved. “Okay. Forget him. Here's what _I've_ been doing.” He described what had happened that morning, and watched Sam's expression change from surprise, to horror, and finally to skepticism.

“Do you believe all that?” Sam asked. “With the clones and the... how do you know this guy's not just some nut? There are Iron Man lookalikes. Heck, there're Captain America lookalikes. Some of them make their living at it.”

“You didn't _see_ him,” Steve said. “He was scared to death. And the unsolved murders he told me about are all real. There's _something_ here. I gotta find out what it is.”

Sam didn't look entirely convinced. “Are we dropping the _Albatross_?” he asked.

“I don't know,” Steve said. “If he's not gonna show, then he's not gonna show, but... yeah.” He leaned back and stared into the bottomless Florida sky for a few moments, trying to figure out their next step. Assuming it was SHIELD who'd been trying to clone superheroes, who might be able to tell them about it? They couldn't ask Fury – he was in Europe somewhere, and nobody found Nick Fury unless Nick Fury _wanted_ to be found. Hill had enough on her plate, dealing with Stark, the government, and former agents in need of jobs and favours. The masses of information Natasha had uploaded in the fall of SHIELD hadn't all been decrypted or cataloged yet – gigs and gigs of it were still sitting around on various servers, waiting for somebody brave enough to tackle it.

Luckily, Steve knew one more person familiar with SHIELD's secrets, and he'd spoken to her only days earlier.

“I'm gonna go check out Ybor Channel,” Sam decided. That was where the _Albatross_ was in dry dock for a paint job, and RedWolff06 had said some things that made it sound as if he worked there.

“Okay,” Steve said. “I'm going to call Natasha.” If he were seeing ghosts, then what he needed was an expert.


	2. Chasing Rabbits

The two men ate lunch – soup and sandwiches at a cafe on South Hyde Park Avenue – and then split up again. Sam took the car, and went to the International Ship Repair and Marine Services dock in Ybor Channel, while Steve set out on foot looking for something that wasn't easy to find in this era of digital communications: a public telephone. He could have used his cell, but Natasha preferred that he not. Cell phones were too personal, too easy to connect to their specific users. Pay phones were available to anybody, and therefore safely anonymous. Steve found one in the university post office, and pushed a quarter into the slot.

It picked up on the eighth ring. Natasha liked to be sure people _really_ wanted to talk to her. “Hello?” a woman's voice asked in a Louisiana drawl.

“Natasha?” asked Steve. “It's me.”

“Why, _Stephen_!” the voice said, as if in exasperation. “ _What_ have I told y'all about callin' me at work?” Steve could hear the sound of children giggling in the background. After the fall of SHIELD, Natasha had gotten a job at a dance school in Baton Rouge. She seemed to like it there, but the presence of her students meant that conversations in Steve had to be in code. At least she seemed to have gotten bored with pretending she was talking to her grandfather. “If you're wonderin' about Jimmy, I ain't seen him in for _ever_.” This was her way of telling him she hadn't learned anything new about Bucky.

“I'm not calling about Bucky,” said Steve. “Sam and I are in Tampa. I don't know if this made the news anywhere else, but they found a body in the water, and the guy who identified it told me that I have a bunch of _clones_ and somebody's killing them off one by one.” No wonder Sam had thought the whole thing might just be Strong's delusion. When he summed it up like, that, it _did_ sound a little ridiculous. Just a little.

“Now, who would go and tell y'all a silly thing like that?” Natasha huffed. It was an effort for Steve not to laugh – he could just see her standing there with her phone to her ear and a hand on her hip, presenting students and colleagues with the very _image_ of an affronted girlfriend. The fact that she'd worked the question into her performance, however, meant that she wanted an answer to it.

“A cab driver from Orlando,” Steve said. “According to his license, his name is Tobias Anthony Strong.”

“Oh, well, of course _he_ would!” Natasha said. “Tell you what, baby. I'll have a word with him after my lesson and we'll get him sorted out. Right now I've gotta run – these little dolls are gonna dance their sweet _toes_ off for Miss Romero, aren't y'all?” There was more background giggling.

Steve rubbed his forehead, trying to figure out exactly what she was telling him. Was _of course_ he _would_ a way of implying that she knew who Strong was, or just a way to segue into her promise to look into it? When she said she would _have a word with him and get him sorted out_ , did she mean exactly that? Strong had already been afraid for his life. If the Black Widow showed up at his door unannounced, he might have a heart attack. The last part was clear enough, though – she was surrounded by her students, and couldn't be more specific about anything right now.

“Thanks,” he said. “I'll go catch up with Sam and wait to hear from you, okay?”

“It's a date,” Natasha promised. “Love you, baby.”

That left Steve an opening he couldn't resist. “I love you, too, Tasha,” he replied, with only a _bit_ of a snicker.

She laughed. “Mwah!” she said, and ended the call.

Despite everything, Steve was smiling as he hung up. Natasha got deep and passionately into character during these conversations and he knew he did it on purpose, trying to make him laugh at inappropriate moments. Someday she would succeed, and Steve would crack up helplessly in public while everybody around him stared, not understanding what was so funny. He'd kept his cool today – but at least he was in a good mood as he caught another bus to Ybor Channel.

It didn't last, of course. He arrived to find more bad news.

The shipyard appeared to be a crime scene. The cops had cordoned off an area around a large shipping container with faded Roxxon logo on the side, and people in white plastic forensics suits – those must have been horrible to wear in the Florida sunshine – were manhandling a body into the back of an ambulance. Steve's stomach twisted itself into a knot. He didn't seem Sam anywhere, but he was sure his partner had to be nearby – Steve could find him later. Right now, he had to get nearer. He had to find someplace from which he could see the _face_ of the corpse.

There was an overpass where the Selmon Expressway crossed North 17th Street. By getting up on top of that, Steve could get a view of the whole channel, with the warehouses and offices of the ship repair firm. It still wasn't a very _close_ look, but he could see uniformed police officers interviewing employees, while detectives scrutinized the shipping container the body had been found of. Steve pulled out a set of digital binoculars Natasha had given him a few months earlier. These were no bigger than the ones people bought for casual birdwatching, but they had an adjustable zoom that a normal camera would have needed a lens a foot long to accomplish. Even through those, though, Steve couldn't see the dead man's face. He could make out ash-brown hair and a bit of scruffy beard, and a blue and white shirt with the letters STRA visible, but nothing more.

Please, _no_. Steve didn't think he could stand finding his own corpse twice in twenty-four hours.

Footsteps alerted him to the approach of another person, but when he looked up he found it was only Sam. The other man came and leaned on the railing next to him.

“Found our source,” he said.

“Really?” Steve's hopes rose, then fell like a stone as he realized exactly what Sam was referring to. “Oh,” he said. “No wonder he didn't text.” The EMTs shut the ambulance door on the corpse. Steve sighed and put the binoculars back in his backpack. “You sure that's him?” he asked. The only things they knew about RedWolff06 was his username and that he'd said they would recognize him at the Pier by his hockey jersey. They didn't have a photo. How could Sam be certain the dead body was his?

“His co-workers told me his name was Rudy Finster,” Sam replied. “Big hockey fan. Anton Stralman, Tampa Bay Lightning number six.”

_Rudy_ was short for _Rudolph_. Red Wolf, in a jersey with the number 06 on it. That did seem to settle it.

“They found him dead in a refrigerated container, around eight AM this morning,” Sam added. “They've got no idea how long he's been there. Whoever did it turned the temperature down as far as it would go. He's frozen solid.”

It had been four days since they'd last communicated with Finster online. “How long has the ship been in drydock?” Maybe the reason it needed painting had something to do with Finster's death.

“I think I heard forty-eight hours,” said Sam.

“I hope he was already dead when they locked the door,” Steve said grimly. “Freezing is a terrible way to go. Did you get a look at him at all?”

Sam shook his head. “Sorry.”

Steve wanted to punch something, but the only thing available was the concrete side of the overpass, and punching _that_ would damage either it or his fist – possibly both. “I guess there's no sign of that weapons shipment, either?”

“Not a single goddamn bullet. If the ship's being repaired then they probably had to find another way to transport them, anyway.”

Steve nodded dismally. Dead ends. Dead ends _everywhere_ , many of them depressingly literal. It was enough to drive a man crazy, or make him doubt whether he'd ever been sane to begin with. Maybe that was HYDRA's whole plan at this point.

“Did you get in touch with Natasha about your clone thing?” asked Sam.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “She nearly Southern Belled me to death, but she said she'd look into it.” He watched as the police loaded the refrigerated crate onto the back of a flatbed semi truck. “Remember when I thought we were gonna track down Bucky inside of a month and find the remaining HYDRA holdouts with his help?”

“Yeah,” said Sam. “Why?”

“Did you ever actually believe we'd be able to do that?” Steve wanted to know.

“Couldn't say.” Sam shrugged. “When Captain America shows up on your doorstep and asks you to help him prevent a secret society from overthrowing the government, and then you actually _do_ exactly that, there's a while there when anything seems possible.”

“What about after a nine-month road trip full of false leads and still no sign of Bucky?”

Sam hesitated. “The novelty kinda wears off,” he admitted. “Why? Are you thinking about packing it in?” His face was worried – he didn't want Steve to give up.

“No,” said Steve, without any hesitation at all. “Don't worry.” Of _course_ he wasn't going to quit – he _couldn't_. If he quit doing _this_ , he wouldn't have _anything_. Steve needed a purpose in his life. He always had. If nobody gave him one, he would come up with one for himself. If he couldn't even do _that_ , he would just wander around picking fights with anybody who acted like a jerk in public, the way he'd used to before Erskine found him.

The cops lashed the container to the bed of the truck and then covered it with a giant white plastic sheet. Convenient of the killer, Steve thought, giving them a crime scene they could just pick up and carry away to study. Especially a refrigerated one, which would preserve the evidence for them. So convenient, in fact, that he doubted they'd find so much as a drop of blood inside – HYDRA was more careful than that. And if Finster really _were_ RedWolff06, then it seemed he hadn't been a crank or a false tip at all. He'd had real information, and now Steve and Sam would never know what it was.

Steve frowned. “A refrigerated container,” he said out loud. “What do they ship in those?” There'd been ice-cooled train cars and shipping containers in the 1940's, used to transport meat and dairy. Had they picked up additional uses since?

“Food, mostly,” said Sam. “Anything that can spoil.” The truck maneuvered slowly out of the lot and onto North 20th Street. “What are you thinking?”

“Bioweapons,” said Steve. Howard Stark, with his brilliant mind that somehow couldn't seem to stop devising ways to kill people, had practically invented the field – but his successors had gleefully taken it to ever more awful extremes. Finster had never told them what _kind_ of weapons HYDRA was smuggling, but he'd implied that he did know, and would have told them at the Pier meeting. With him dead, all they had now were his hints. “We need to look at the cargo manifests,” Steve said.

“Cops or reporters?” asked Sam. They had posed as both in several states by now, and Steve liked to think they were getting pretty good at it. “Reporters might not be allowed to look,” Sam went on thoughtfully. “There'll be lots of cops around. Nobody will notice more cops.”

“The cops will,” Steve said. “We could be FBI, but there's no reason for them to get involved in this. Finster was murdered where he worked. The county will be handling it.”

Sam snapped his fingers. “I got it! Have you got a suit?”

“What, my uniform?” asked Steve, puzzled. What would that do, besides attract attention? “I gave that back to the Smithsonian.” The curator had looked as if he would cry when he saw the damage it had sustained.

“No, a normal person suit,” said Sam. He mimed pulling at a pair of lapels. “The kind with a jacket and tie. We're gonna be _lawyers_.”

Steve chuckled. “Perfect, except that no, I _don't_ have a suit.” When they'd set off on their possibly-suicidal cross-country conspiracy-fighting trip, suits and ties hadn't been on the list of things either had figured they'd need. “We can rent them, though. We'll also need a business card.” This was all going to take time that they could have devoted to the clone thing... but if they focused on the clone thing instead, the _Albatross_ problem might slip through their fingers. Could they possibly do _both_ without missing something vital?

Steve's phone buzzed. He pulled it out to check, and found a very brief text message from an unknown number.

_08:30 Busch Gardens :)_

“What's that?” Sam asked.

“That'll be Natasha,” Steve replied. The smiley face was how she 'signed' her messages. “Apparently she's taking us to the amusement park.” He showed Sam the phone.

“Well, when the Black Widow tells you to be there, you be there,” said Sam.

* * *

Busch Gardens didn't open until ten, but by 8:30 the next morning people were already queuing outside the gates while loudspeakers blared corny 'adventure' music into the gathering crowd. Since Natasha's message had not been specific, Sam and Steve just got in line and acted casual. They had faith in her ability to find _them_.

“Mornin', fellas!” her voice said suddenly, and there she was, right next to them. She'd dyed her hair dark brown and was wearing it long and straight with bangs in front, and here bright floral-print dress was accessorized with an enormous red pleather purse and oversized sunglasses. It ought to have been possible to see her coming from a mile away, and yet somehow neither Steve nor Sam had spotted her until she spoke up. In this crowd of gaudily-dressed tourists, she blended right in.

“I get sick on roller coasters,” Steve warned her. “At least, I _think_ I do. I haven't been on one in, oh, about seventy years or so.”

“That's okay. We ain't stayin',” Natasha promised, in the same deep south accent she'd used on the phone. Steve was gratified to see that Sam, too, had trouble keeping a straight face confronted with it. “Come on,” she added, gesturing for the boys to follow her. “We're goin' for a car ride.”

She led them back to a car in the parking lot – Steve decided to assume it was hers – and got into the front, while the men climbed in the back seat.

“Where are we going?” Steve asked.

“Nowhere,” said Natasha, the accent vanishing. She started the car, then reached into her purse and pulled out a small metal object, which she dropped into Steve's hand. “Do you know what this is?”

He held it up for a look. “It's a class ring,” he said. Why would Natasha give him that?

“Harvard Law,” Sam agreed. “With the three books and the _ve-ri-tas_.”

Natasha nodded, and kept her eyes up front as she maneuvered out of the parking lot. “What did Toby Strong look like?”

“Like Stark.” Steve didn't even need to think about it – that had been his first impression of the man, and it would be the one that lingered. “If he were twenty years younger and traded the Van Dyke for a pair of big black-rimmed glasses. Did you find out anything about him?”

“He's not a cab driver,” said Natasha. “Maybe he is _now_ , but until last May he was a SHIELD optics technician.”

“What does that entail?” asked Steve. _Optics technician_ didn't sound particularly threatening, but you never knew with SHIELD. Fury had bragged once that his organization's technology was twenty to fifty years ahead of what was on the public market. Steve had always meant to try and meet some of the people who worked on it and thank them for providing him and the other field agents with their gear. The opportunity had never come up, and was now lost forever.

“Targeting, scanning, cameras, anything with lenses and light,” Natasha explained. “That ring is one of his – the camera lens is in the loop of the 'R'. If you still have those binoculars I gave you, he built those, too, to my specifications. Everybody else told me you couldn't _make_ a zoom lens like that. Strong just asked me for a couple of extra days.” She was smiling a bit. Clearly, she'd liked the man's can-do attitude.

That confirmed what Steve had suspected based on their phone conversation: “you've met him, then.”

“A few times.” She nodded. “Always for equipment requests. Actually, when Fury sent me to watch Stark, my first thought was that _he_ looked an awful lot like _Strong_.”

“So did SHIELD _make_ the clones?” Steve asked. “Or just take them in?” He hoped it was the latter, just so he could have _some_ faith in the organization left.

“I don't know. I didn't know they existed.” Natasha thought about it for a minute. “Strong said... it was a joke around his department for years,” she explained. “When people told him he looked like Stark, he would say that he was a clone and they grew him from a kleenex Stark used after getting a bloody nose in a bar fight. As far as I know, nobody ever took it seriously. I don't know anything about Strong's past, but that's normal enough for SHIELD. They didn't really encourage us to get to know our co-workers.” Natasha was quiet a moment longer, then said, “I can tell you he probably grew up in the Four Corners. He tends to shorten his A's. He says Colla- _rad_ -oh instead of Colla- _raw_ -doh.”

“So he's been around for a while,” said Sam. “He didn't just pop up after the Battle of New York when somebody said, _hey, let's clone the Avengers_.”

“Oh, no,” Natasha agreed. “Strong's one of the prodigies. SHIELD would go out of their way to hire child geniuses. He'd been working for them since he was about fifteen. What did he tell _you_?”

Steve described the conversation, ashamed to admit just how little he'd actually learned from it. He'd missed so many opportunities. Natasha would have come away from the same taxi ride with Strong's entire life story and details on all the other clones he'd mentioned. “He did say, explicitly, that he was a clone,” Steve said in closing. “He said _more are on the way_.”

“That's not a threat,” said Sam. “That's an Alice Cooper song.”

That was slightly reassuring, at least. Steve leaned forward between the seats. “Do you ever remember meeting anybody at SHIELD who looked like _me_?” he asked Natasha. “Me, but shorter, and probably not breathing too well?” It was funny... he barely remembered now what it had been like to be that sickly little man. There was a dreamlike quality to his memories of the aches and the shortness of breath, of the straining to reach shelves and the straining to hear, that made it all seem like part of somebody else's life. But if half of Steve's life were a dream, wouldn't it make more sense that little Steve in 1944 was the reality, and Captain America in 2015 was the illusion?

Natasha's reply brought him back out of this reflective moment. “No, not that I remember,” she said, “but there were a lot of people at SHIELD I never paid any attention to. Clerks, janitors, secretaries... maybe nobody _wanted_ me to pay attention to them.”

There was bitterness in her voice, and Steve couldn't blame her. That was part of _her_ job, to vanish into a crowd and be that person nobody looked at, and she was _good_ at it. To know she'd been fooled by people _exactly like herself_ must be hard for her to take – but she wouldn't want sympathy, so Steve said nothing.

“At least it's not hard to imagine _why_ they'd want to clone him,” Sam said with a grin. “The boy's worth cloning for his delts alone.”

“It didn't work, though,” Steve said, ignoring the joke. “The clones didn't show the effects of the serum. That's the part that doesn't make sense. If they're killing them just because they were a failed experiment, why would they be doing that _now_?” That was such a horrible thought. At least the people targeted by Project Insight were _potential_ threats. The clones were apparently dying just because somebody was _disappointed_ in them. “If they made these clones before I came back, why keep them for years and let them establish identities for themselves? The ones Strong talked about all had names and jobs. Why wait to get rid of them until somebody will actually _notice_ that they're missing?”

“We can't guess at that until we know who was responsible for the project and what happened to it,” Natasha told him. “I'll have to look at the wikileaks data and see if there's anything left that the software I have can decrypt. HYDRA's been slipping viruses into it,” she added, annoyed. “There are still clean copies around, but you have to be very careful about what you download these days.”

Digital guerrilla warfare, Steve thought. What a world he'd awakened on. “Did you actually go talk to Strong?” If Natasha had already known him, her appearance might not have terrified him quite so much.

“I tried,” she said. “He was already gone when I found his apartment. He left in a big hurry. All his stuff was still there, including food, clothes, and unopened mail. Everything but whatever he kept on one empty bookshelf,” she said thoughtfully.

That wasn't very helpful. Again, Steve wished he'd asked better questions before Strong kicked him out of the car. “Any idea where he went? He wouldn't tell me.”

“I've got an idea how to find out,” Natasha said, “but first I need to grab a nap. This regular work schedule thing is getting to me.” She glanced in the rearview mirror and smiled at the men. “Unless you boys want to try the roller coasters after all.”

Steve shook his head. “Maybe another time.”

* * *

Natasha took her nap in their motel room, and in the afternoon they returned to Ybor Channel. The ship repair company had a gate at the entrance, but when three professionally-dressed people in a new, clean car pulled up, the bar rose and the security guard waved them through without bothering a second look. They parked, and Natasha waited with the car while Sam and Steve headed for the long, low building that housed the company offices.

Both men were dressed in rented suites. Sam's was a pretty good fit, but the buttons on Steve's blazer were slightly strained, and he wasn't about to try raising his arms over his head. They walked into the building, and Sam pulled out a business card – purchased half an hour earlier at a printing shop on East Adamo Drive – and gave it to the receptionist.

“We're from the law firm of Piper and Shea,” said Sam.

“He's Piper,” said Steve.

“He's Shea,” said Sam.

“We're representing Roxxon,” Steve said. “We'd like to get a look at any paperwork you have associated with the _Albatross_ and its contents.”

“The Finster family is preparing a lawsuit,” said Sam.

“Of course.” The receptionist, a plump Latina woman in catseye glasses, stood up. “Right this way, Gentlemen.”

Steve and Sam shared a conspiratorial smile as they followed her. The fake Harvard ring with its tiny hidden camera was on Sam's left middle finger. So far, everything was going smoothly. Maybe a little _too_ smoothly... but Steve pushed that thought out of his head. It would only jinx them.

About twenty extremely disappointing minutes later, the two men thanked the receptionist, assured her that they didn't want any coffee _or_ to meet her recently divorced daughter, and returned to the car.

Natasha was still waiting. She, too, was dressed in a rented suit, in case Sam and Steve made fools of themselves and she had to intervene, and had been listening in on a small bug she'd stuck to the back of one of Sam's buttons. As they approached, she gave them a round of only slightly ironic applause. “You two did great,” she said. “I'm proud of you. I didn't think you had it in you, Mr. Oh Yes, We're Getting Married.” She poked Steve in the middle of the chest.

Neither of them felt that they deserved the compliment. Steve just scowled and shook his head, while Sam pulled the ring off and handed it back to her. “Here,” he said. “Take a look.”

She opened it and slid the micro SD connector into her phone. The photographs Sam had taken popped up, and Steve watched Natasha's fingers slide across the screen to choose one image and zoom in – the manifest describing what the _Albatross'_ intended cargo had been, before an accident had left it in the channel for repainting. He knew exactly when she saw the relevant word. Natasha wasn't bothering to hide her emotions right now, and the disappointment registered in both her face and her posture.

“ _Perishables_?” she asked.

“Perishables,” Steve confirmed – the only word listed as the contents of the refrigerated containers. He was growing increasingly tempted to take out his frustration on _something_ , and the idea of throwing his prop briefcase over the drydocks and into the water beyond was a very appealing one.

“Entirely legal, but extremely suspicious,” Natasha said. She flicked to the next page, and cocked her head. “Colorado Springs?”

“That's where the cargo was coming from,” Sam nodded. “Too bad nobody knows where it ended up – except for Finster, and he's not talking.”

Natasha pursed her lips as she considered that. “There was a SHIELD research facility outside of Colorado Springs, underneath the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. Strong's first job was there. Colla- _rad_ -oh.” She mimicked his idiosyncratic pronunciation again.

“What kind of research?” asked Steve.

“I only _pretend_ to know everything, remember?” Natasha disconnected the ring camera and brought up another app. “What I _do_ know is that Strong wasn't alone there. While you two were playing lawyers I took a quick look through the wikileaks data, the stuff that was already decrypted. I've got Strong's personnel files – he's actually worked at SHIELD since he was _twelve_ – and I found two of the other names you mentioned as well. A man named Stanley Reeves was a forklift operator at Cheyenne, and a Scott Orchard was a pharmacist in the infirmary there. I'm emailing the stuff to you now.” She finished that, and put both the phone and the ring back in her purse. “If you want to chase these rabbits, it looks like we're going to Colorado Springs.”

“Are we sure these are two different rabbits?” asked Sam as they got back in the car. “The clone thing popped up while we were looking into the _Albatross_ , and now we find out they both lead back to the same place.”

“But what do dead clones have to do with a shipment of HYDRA weapons?” asked Steve. The clones certainly didn't fall into that category themselves – they were thin young men with a multitude of health problems.

Natasha was in the middle of doing up her seat belt when she stopped and grabbed his arm. “DNA-based targeting,” she said. “Remember?”

That hadn't occurred to Steve, but he _did_ remember.

So did Sam. “Like in Insight?” he asked. “Sitwell said they were going to find their targets by reading their DNA with a satellite. That would require a hell of a long-distance scanning mechanism.”

“But we already _know_ that an expert on scanning and imaging devices is involved,” Natasha said. “And Strong can easily find the clones if he wants to. They probably trust him. He's _one of them_.”

Steve could feel things dropping into place, and this time there was no surprise, only a leaden sense of inevitability. “Strong was afraid for his _own_ life, though,” he protested. “Unless that was just an act...” What was it Strong had given as his reason for identifying Reeves' body? _That's what a_ normal _person would do_? Steve didn't always like Tony Stark very much but he respected the man's brain... the idea of a mind like that dedicated to HYDRA was an uncomfortable one in the extreme. “And if they're testing a DNA targeting system on _my_ clones, then it's easy enough to guess their endgame.”

“Yes, it is,” Natasha agreed.

This really _was_ personal. “Well, he knows I'm in Tampa,” said Steve. Was it just revenge, he wondered, or were they planning something bigger, and wanted to take Steve out before he could cause them any more problems? “I guess we're going to Colorado.”


	3. The Cosmic Cafe

They had takeout for dinner at the motel that night. Natasha pouted a bit, explaining that she'd originally intended to take the men to the Columbia Restaurant in downtown Tampa. Supposedly, it served the best key lime pie on earth. In light of what they now knew, however, that would have been a bit too public – especially when Steve had already been photographed at the police station the other morning. It was time to lie a little lower. They got Thai food, and ate in the hotel room while watching the local news.

“The Tampa Bay area is reeling after the discovery of _two_ homicides in barely forty-eight hours,” an anchorwoman announced, standing in the shipyard at Ybor Channel. “The second body, found this morning aboard the cargo ship _Albatross_ , was that of International Ship Repair and Marine Services employee Rudolph Finster.”

They put a photograph up on the screen: a group of men posing together on a hiking trail lookout point. Finster's face was circled in red, and Steve was relieved to see that it was that of a stranger. He was a tall, barrel-chested kid with unkempt brown hair, a long aquiline nose, and a broad chin. He looked very much like the men on either side of him in the picture, probably his brothers, but did not resemble Steve.

The news report moved on to a more cheerful discussion of Busch Gardens' new cheetah cubs. Steve pointed at the screen with his chopsticks. “Strong was right,” he observed. “Once the body's been identified, people stop talking about it.” There'd been barely a mention of Reeves' case, and only that very quick discussion of Finster's. Of course that was what Strong had wanted. _Of course_.

“People don't like mysteries,” Natasha said. “They take whatever closure they can find. That's how conspiracies go unchecked and innocent people end up in jail.”

Steve understood why people would cling to an easy answer, but false closure was a luxury _they_ could not afford. They were going to have to follow this trail wherever it led, and that was frustrating. Steve and Sam had just _been_ in Kansas City a couple of weeks ago, following up a rumor about the Winter Soldier. Returning to the heartland after coming all the way to Florida felt like backtracking. Too, it made Steve wonder if they'd missed an opportunity. If only they'd managed to stumble on this plot sooner, they could have already _been_ at the heart of it, and maybe Reeves and Finster wouldn't have had to die.

Steve wondered just who his clones _were_ , as people. He'd gotten an impression of Toby Strong as a frightened, mousy little man just trying to keep his head above water, a personality about as different from Tony Stark's as it was possible to be. But that had turned out to be completely false. What about the others? Stanley Reeves had been a shipping clerk, and one of the online articles had mentioned David Rodman working in computer tech support. Did they like their jobs? Did they have best friends? Pets? Hobbies? Every one of these men was a version of who Steve might have been, if certain people and events hadn't come into his life. Who were they?

Natasha went out on the balcony to make a phone call to her boss, with an excuse for why she would be away from the ballet school for a while longer. She returned as Sam and Steve finished their dinner, and began helping them gather up the takeout boxes to throw away.

“I gotta ask,” Sam said to her. “How did you end up teaching little girls ballet? If you were gonna teach something, I would have figured on... I don't know, maybe kung-fu.”

“If I tried to teach kung-fu, people would probably die,” said Natasha. “Ballet isn't actually that much different, though.” She stood up and fluidly assumed the five basic positions, one after the other. “It's all about control of the body, and focus of the mind.” She lowered herself to the floor in a perfect straddle split. “I like the kids, too. I've always liked children, even when I _was_ a child. They're so eager for anything you can teach them.”

Sam's eyebrows rose.

Natasha smiled as she bounced back to her feet. “Don't worry, I promise I'm not secretly raising an army of southern pageant girl assassins.”

“Thanks,” said Steve. “We'll sleep more soundly tonight knowing that.”

* * *

They left Tampa right after breakfast the next morning, knowing full well as they did that they were driving into a proverbial lion's den. If all this, whatever it was, had originated in Colorado Springs, then by all rights that was the _last_ place they ought to be going. Of course, the SSR training camp in New Jersey had been the same way. Not to mention every single place Steve had ever gone during the war, from the POW camp in Austria onwards. If he were a normal person he would probably have been considered a danger to himself and others – but he was Captain America. For Captain America, this was just a Thursday.

Before leaving the state, they stopped early in the afternoon at an Apple Store in Gainesville. Natasha liked Apple Stores for the same reason she liked pay phones: anybody could use them, you didn't need any sort of membership to do so, and so many people _did_ that it was almost never possible to obtain useful fingerprints or DNA from what they'd touched. In her floral dress and tacky sunglasses, now with the addition of an enormous straw hat, she strode in, chose an iBook, and plugged in a flash drive.

“ _This_ one isn't going to try to kill us, is it?” asked Steve.

“Shouldn't.” Natasha brought up a program and began entering commands. “This is a worm that trawls social media looking for faces in photos. If we're lucky, we'll find Strong in the background somewhere. That'll tell us which direction he went after leaving Orlando.”

“Will that work?” Steve leaned to watch over Natasha's shoulder. “Strong has Stark's face, and Stark is _constantly_ being photographed.” Steve had seen it happen – people came up to him in the street and asked for a picture, in the same awed tone as Officer Gonzales making the same request of Steve.

“True,” Natasha said. “Lucky for us, Strong himself has provided us with an additional search parameter. I've never seen him without his glasses.” Pictures began popping up on the screen one after the other as the worm searched.

“Does Stark wear glasses?” asked Sam, frowning.

“Contacts, probably,” said Steve. “He's too vain for glasses.”

“If Stark wore contacts I would know about it,” Natasha agreed. “I've seen him in sunglasses, but never ophthalmics. I figure he either got laser surgery years ago, or else Strong just ruined his eyes working on tiny little components.”

“Or Strong's glasses are just for disguise,” Steve suggested. “Clark Kent wore glasses.”

“Comic books are not a good guide to maintaining your secret identity,” said Natasha disapprovingly. A moment later the iBook dinged at her, and she smiled. “Bingo!”

The worm had located two pictures on the same facebook account, both layered with instagram filters but still mostly intelligible. They showed two young women sitting in a restaurant with bright-coloured murals on the wall. The girls were smiling with their arms around each other, but in the background, next to a painting of monkeys in a tree, were two more people. One was a woman with long, loose blonde hair and her back to the camera. The other was barely visible over her shoulder, but the glasses were certainly familiar, and Steve had faith that the software looked closer than he could. In the first picture, Strong looked like he was just talking to the blonde. In the second, they were halfway into or out of a hug.

“It's tagged _Cosmic Cafe, Dallas_ ,” Natasha said. “He went to Texas.”

“There was an unidentified clone dead in Texas City,” Steve remembered. He peered at the photos. “Do you think he knows the girl, or is he just being a Stark?”

“Strong wasn't a touchy-feely type with strangers,” Natasha said. “Either way, though, she might have information.”

“She's wearing an apron,” Sam pointed. “She works there.”

The photos vanished as Natasha pulled the flash drive out and put it back in her pocket. “Lucky for us, if we're going to Colorado Springs, Dallas is more or less on the way.

“Can I help you with anything?” a voice suddenly asked from behind them.

For half a second, Steve had an awful mental picture of turning around to find the same long-haired, bearded man who'd tried to help him and Natasha at the Apple Store in DC. Would he remember them? Would they have to answer awkward questions about their honeymoon in New Jersey? Where would people even _go_ on a honeymoon in New Jersey? Steve hoped Natasha knew, because he sure didn't.

Fortunately, it seemed that Steve's luck was not _quite_ that bad. When he looked, the employee turned out to be a tall, thin Asian man with close-cut hair, mercifully unfamiliar.

“Oh, no, thanks all the same,” Natasha said brightly, back in her southern accent. “We're just checkin' in with a friend on facebook!”

“All right. If you need anything, I'm Keisuke.” The man tapped his name tag, and then walked away. Steve breathed out.

Natasha put her sunglasses back on. “Texas,” she said.

“Texas,” Sam agreed.

* * *

Gainesville to Dallas was a fifteen hour drive, so the three took it in shifts. Natasha went first, then Steve took over between Pensacola and Jackson. Sam was driving, with Steve and Natasha asleep in the back seat, when they pulled into a motel parking lot off Route 80 in Mesquite, shortly after sunrise. They crashed there until noon, then showered and changed their clothes before heading into Dallas proper to find the Cosmic Cafe and Yoga Club on Oak Lawn Avenue.

The cafe was a ranch house style building painted with bright colours and pseudo-Indian motifs, in between two small strips of modern shops. The weather was sunny but cold, so there was nobody outside on the patio, but inside the restaurant was surprisingly busy. Steve, Sam, and Natasha had deliberately arrived in the middle of the afternoon in order to be between the lunch and dinner rushes, but it didn't seem to have done any good. At least half the tables were in use, and the waitresses, in beige aprons with a blue Ganesh logo on the front, were busy.

None of the women working appeared to have long blonde hair.

“Sam,” Natasha ordered, “you check out front. Steve, try the back parking lot. It's a quarter to three – if she's just arriving for the closing shift, it'll be about now. I'll see what I can get from her co-workers.” She stepped up to tap a waitress on the shoulder.

The woman turned. “Can I help you, Miss?”

“Hi!” said Natasha, the accent materializing again as she took her sunglasses off. “I'm sorry to interrupt, but I was wonderin' if y'all can do me a favour.”

Steve and Sam headed out to their assigned posts. While Sam waited on the patio, Steve headed around back to the parking lot. This was enclosed on all four sides – by the restaurant in front, fences on either side, and the Big Star Title Loans building that faced the opposite street. The people here were mostly customers getting into and out of their cars, but when Steve looked around he spotted a head of blonde hair on a woman leaning against the tree in the west corner of the lot, texting. She was wearing a dark coat to ward off the chilly breeze, but the hem of a beige apron was visible under it.

“Excuse me,” Steve called out.

The woman looked up, and her mouth dropped open. “Captain _Rogers_?” she asked in disbelief.

This time it took Steve a minute. The long blonde hair threw him off, as did the modern makeup. But when he looked at her nose, her cheekbones, her keen brown eyes... Steve had looked gods and monsters in the eye and hadn't blinked, but now he felt like his knees might collapse out from under him.

It was _Peggy_.

No. Not Peggy, he told himself. A clone of Peggy. Genetically identical, but _not Peggy_.

Steve didn't need to wonder if she were the same blonde from the photograph. Of course she was. If Strong were going to stop and talk to somebody on the way to wherever he was going, of _course_ it was a fellow clone. But the idea that a version of _Peggy_ might be mixed up in whatever the hell this was, possibly on the wrong sided of it, made Steve feel sick.

“Who are you?” he asked.

She carefully slid her phone into her jacket pocket. Her posture was tense – arms flexed, feet apart, ready to run. Just like Strong. “Megan,” she said. “I work here.” Her accent was Midwestern. Not a trace of Britain.

Steve took a step towards her. “We need to talk to you.”

Megan sidled away, towards the restaurant building. “Who's _we_?”

“Me, Sam, and Natasha,” Steve said. “We're looking into the murders of my clones.” He had to think. He couldn't waste this like he'd wasted talking to Strong. What should he say? Natasha would know what to ask. “Tobias Strong was here a couple of days ago...”

“Yes, and I told him to leave!” Megan said. “We've been waiting for something like this for months. Sooner or later somebody was going to remember we existed and try to do something about it. I don't want Toby hanging around drawing attention to me. Or you, either!”

“Just a few questions,” Steve promised. He held up his hands, trying to show that he was unarmed. “Then we'll leave. We don't want to put you in any danger.” He stepped towards her again.

Megan reacted by cartwheeling to the side and springing onto the top of a nearby minivan, as fluid and agile as a monkey. Steve stared. He'd seen Peggy Carter do some pretty amazing things, but she hadn't been able to do _that_.

“Wait!” he protested.

She did a backflip off the vehicle and landed in front of him on all fours, then supported herself on her hands so she could kick at him with both legs in a graceful spin. Steve barely managed to duck out of the way in time. This was crazy. Strong had been frightened – or at least, he'd _acted_ frightened – but had still given Steve a ride. What in the world was Megan so scared of that she thought she had to defend herself from him?

Steve rolled back to his feet and brought up his arms in front of him. Megan tried to deliver a kick to his midsection, but he'd recovered from his initial shock by now enough to analyze her fighting style. Capoiera. Steve caught her ankle on his arm and tried to throw her onto the hood of the van, but she bounced back and somersaulted onto his shoulders. The next thing he knew, he was flat on his back with her lower arm pressing against his larynx.

“Leave me _alone_!” she ordered. “Whoever you're working for, SHIELD or HYDRA or the SNA or the fucking 4H Club, I don't care, tell them to _leave us alone_! We don't want to work for you, we don't want to sell you any secrets, and we _definitely_ don't want to die! Leave us alone, and we will live perfectly quiet lives and never bother anybody who didn't bother us first! Okay?”

Then they heard the 'click'.

Steve looked past Megan's furious face, and found Natasha standing there with a glock in her hand.

“Who's the girl?” she asked, in the exact same tone she'd used for the same question in the abandoned SSR camp in New Jersey.

Megan glanced back to gauge the situation, then rolled off Steve and coiled up, preparing to kick the weapon out of Natasha's hands. Natasha snatched it away before she had the chance, and Steve grabbed Megan around the waist. The two of them keeled over forward and landed in a clumsy heap on the pavement, and Steve pressed his advantage, crawling on top of Megan and pinning her arms behind her back. Megan looked up at her assailants, then opened her mouth wide and took a deep breath. They were ten feet from a restaurant full of people, Steve realized. If she began screaming for help, she would get it.

Before she could get a sound out, though, Natasha had the barrel of the gun against Megan's forehead. Steve noticed for the first time that her finger was _behind_ the trigger, not on it. “Don't scream,” Natasha ordered. “Steve won't hurt you because he's a gentleman. I, on the other hand, am a Black Widow.” Her eyes flicked to Steve's face. “What did you say to her.”

“Nothing,” said Steve. “I told her I wanted to talk to her, and she had a fit.” He helped Megan up as far as her knees and no further, not wanting to give her another chance to kick. This was ridiculous, he thought – they shouldn't have to be holding one of the people they were trying to _help_ at gunpoint. But Megan herself hadn't given them much choice. If she ran away without answering their questions, where else could they go?

“What am I _supposed_ to do when Captain fucking America says he wants to 'talk' to me?” Megan asked.

“You're _supposed_ to answer his questions politely,” Natasha replied. “Because believe it or not, he's the good guy.”

“You mean the 'good guy' who tossed us out into the world with no legal identities or verifiable work experience?” Megan snarled. “Where we'll be freaks and curiosities to anybody who ever figures out who we are? Yeah, he's a fucking _angel_.”

Steve wished she'd stop using that word. “Peggy never swore,” he said, which wasn't quite true – but when Peggy swore, she'd used amusing Briticisms like 'crikey!' and 'bloody Nora!' that he and Bucky had used to tease her about, while she in turn scolded them for their foul soldiers' mouths.

“Well, _fucking_ good for _fucking_ her!” Megan spat.

“We're going to let you up now,” Natasha said, “and you're going to come with us.” Her voice was low and calm, but cold enough to make Steve shiver. “We need to know more about the clones so we can figure out who's killing them and why. Once you've answered our questions, we'll let you go, and you can live whatever type of quiet ordinary life you want. Do you understand?”

“Do I have a choice?” asked Megan.

“No.”

Megan remained sullenly quiet as they escorted her to where Sam was waiting in the car. Steve walked on the right, holding her wrists, while Natasha was on the left, her hand under Megan's hair so nobody would see the small gun pressed against their prisoner's occipital. They got into the car in the same order – Natasha, then Megan, then Steve.

“Drive,” Natasha ordered.

“I'm supposed to be back at work in ten minutes,” Megan said, as they turned right onto Oak Lawn Avenue. “So thanks, this'll be _two_ jobs I've lost because of you.”

“The faster you answer, the faster we can have you back,” Natasha said. “Tell us about the clones.”

Megan slumped, apparently giving up. “What do you want to know?”

“Who did the cloning?” Steve asked immediately. That was the question he most regretted not asking Strong.

She rolled her eyes. “Who do you think?”

“Just tell us,” said Steve. He tried to keep his voice gentle, nonthreatening. Natasha could play bad cop if necessary – and Steve didn't want a civilian to be frightened of him, especially a civilian who looked so much like Peggy. Was it true what Megan had said about the fall of SHIELD? Had the clones really lived their whole lives within the organization until Steve, Natasha, Sam, and Hill brought the whole thing crashing down? No wonder Strong had sounded annoyed when Steve wished him _good luck_.

“SHIELD,” said Megan. “SHIELD made us.”

Steve's heart sank. He'd wanted to believe that the agency Peggy and Howard had founded would consider to have _some_ kind of standards after they left it. He should have known better.

“Who was in charge of the project?” Natasha asked.

“Fenstermacher,” said Megan.

Natasha glanced in the rearview mirror. “Dr. _Wolfgang_ Fenstermacher?”

“No, Dr. _Norm_ Fenstermacher,” Megan growled, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “How many guys named Fenstermacher do _you_ know?”

“Who's Wolfgang Fenstermacher?” asked Sam. “I feel like I should know the name.”

“Wolfgang Fenstermacher the Second. Head of experimental biology,” Natasha explained. “Wolfgang Fenstermacher _Senior_ was one of the German scientists brought to the US as part of Project Paperclip. His son worked on the Human Genome Project and a few other things that got public attention – you might have heard of him in that capacity. He died in 2004.”

So Steve had been both right _and_ wrong. “SHIELD _didn't_ make you, then,” he said to Megan. “HYDRA did.” He had no idea whether that was better, or worse.

“Not all the Germans were necessarily HYDRA,” Natasha said. “ _Why_ did SHIELD want to clone people?”

Megan jabbed a thumb at Steve. “Because they couldn't clone _him_ ,” she said. “The original idea was to make more of Captain America. They'd taken samples of his tissues back in World War II, but they used them all up trying to extract the serum from them. Then sometime in the late 80's, they realized they still had a tooth in the freezer somewhere.”

“I remember that,” said Steve. “I got hit in the face with an iron bar during a fight in the Black Forest and broke a tooth. They took me straight back to allied territory and put a crown on it, because Captain America can't star in the newsreels with missing tooth.” Steve had been furious about that. An important HYDRA operative had escaped, and could have been captured if they'd pursued him immediately – but no, the army was worried about Steve's _smile_.

“Right,” said Megan, unimpressed by the story. “So they extracted the DNA from the pulp, and grew clones out of that.”

That much made sense. “Dr. Erskine's notes had said that my genes would be the key to recreating the serum,” Steve said. “What did they do wrong?”

“If they knew, they would have fixed it,” said Megan. “Maybe Erskine just screwed up. It happens to the best of us.” She clearly didn't care.

“How many clones were there?” asked Natasha. “Just of Steve.”

“I don't know. I'm sure they started off with hundreds of embryos. We didn't have a very good survival rate, especially the Steves.” Megan's eyes unfocused as she counted to herself. “I know of fourteen who were alive last year.”

_Fourteen_ , thought Steve. Fourteen of _him_. What was he supposed to think of that information? Because he had no idea.

“What happened next?” Natasha asked. “They couldn't clone Steve, so they cloned other people. Who?”

“Anybody _useful_ ,” Megan said bitterly. “Valuable agents, a few mutants, any distinguished scientists or fighters or athletes that they could sneak a sample from. They figured in twenty years they'd have an army of exceptional people trained to their specifications. But _that_ didn't work, either,” she added, “because it's all very well to say _in twenty years_ until you actually have to wait that long for your clones to grow up. Fenstermacher died. Other people retired or just moved on to other projects, until nobody knows what to do with us anymore, so they just find us desk jobs and try to forget about us. SHIELD is full of shit like that,” Megan sighed. “Stuff that didn't work the way they wanted, so they buried it and pretended it never happened.”

She sounded _tired_ now, as if she'd once been angry about the situation, but given up and was now merely resigned. Steve reached to put a hand on her shoulder, but she shoved it off and glared at him, and he quickly turned his head to look out the window.

Natasha continued the interrogation. “What did Strong say when he stopped by to see you?”

“He wanted to know if I were okay,” said Megan. “I said I was. He wanted to know if he could say with me for a couple of days, and I said he couldn't. He told me Stan was dead and he still hasn't heard from Roger, and asked if I'd heard about the one in Texas City and whether I knew who it was. I said I thought it might be Clive, but I wasn't sure. It could have been Evan.”

“Who are Clive and Evan?” asked Steve.

“Clive Roberts and Evan Grant. Last I heard from them, Clive was working at a car detailing business and Evan was at a gas station. I don't know if it was either of them, but if it wasn't I didn't want to try to contact them in case somebody was watching _me_.”

“Clive Roberts and Evan Grant,” Sam echoed. “Did they name _all_ of them like that?”

Megan scowled. “They weren't creative people.” She checked her watch.

“We're almost done,” Natasha promised her. “Did Strong tell you where he was going?”

“No, and I didn't ask him,” said Megan. “If I had to guess, probably back to Colorado Springs.”

“Why would he go there?” asked Steve. Colorado Springs was clearly the epicenter of all this, and if it were a dangerous place for Steve go to, it was probably far _more_ dangerous for the clones. Unless, of course, Strong was going there to meet the masterminds behind the murders he'd committed.

“His surrogate still lives there,” Megan said. “Agent Fa. She was one of the ones who stayed in touch. If anybody will give him a place to crash, it's her.”

“What about _your_ surrogate?” asked Steve. It wasn't relevant, but he was curious.

Megan shrugged. “What about her? I never met her. She popped me out, collected her paycheque, and went back to whatever the hell she'd been doing.”

“Didn't you...” Steve began, but Natasha interrupted him.

“Do you know what Strong took with him?” she asked. “He emptied a bookshelf when he left his apartment. Do you have any idea what he would have kept on it?”

Megan apparently didn't need to think about it. “His cameras,” she said. “Toby collects old cameras and fixes them up. He's got some of them that are a hundred and fifty years old. He probably wrapped them all up lovingly in bubble wrap and completely forgot about packing his clothes.” There was exasperation in this statement, but also affection, as if for a little brother whom she didn't quite consider an adult. It was the gentlest thing Steve had yet heard from her.

That made what he had to tell her next very difficult. “We, uh... we think Strong may be involved in the murders of the clones.”

Megan's face hardened immediately. “That's ridiculous.”

“That's our working theory,” Natasha said. She explained the apparent connections: dead clones, DNA targeting, long-distance scanning, and a conspiracy that had already tried to kill Captain America.

“That's _ridiculous_ ,” Megan repeated. “Have any of you _met_ Toby? Look, we all grew up together.” She turned to Steve, hoping to persuade _him_ if she couldn't Natasha. “Toby was cut to bits by Stan dying. Stan was his best friend. He wouldn't. He _couldn't_ ,” she insisted. “You couldn't make him!”

“If it helps, we think they're only after the clones of Steve,” Natasha said. “For now, at least.”

“Shut up, you're all idiots!” Megan put her hands over her ears. “Fuck your _theory_! Your theory is stupid!” She sat there hunched for a minute, holding her head, then straightened up and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her jacket. “Am I allowed to ask _you_ guys a question?”

“Of course,” said Steve. If she wanted a few answers of her own, she deserved to have them.

Megan licked her lips. “How did you find me?” She sounded as if she were dreading the answer.

“Facebook,” Natasha explained. “Somebody posted two selfies from the restaurant, with you and Strong in the background.”

Megan's eyes went wide. “ _Fuck_!” she repeated, and bent over forward again, face in her hands. “I'm going to kill him! How _could_ he be so _stupid_?” She squirmed in her seat. “Well, that blows _that_. You can't take me back to work now. If _you_ found me there, anybody can.” Megan sat up and flopped back against the car seat, head back to stare blankly at the ceiling. “What am I gonna _do_?” she asked helplessly. “See, this is why I'm a shitty secret agent!”

She sounded so honestly upset, Steve wanted to try to comfort her – but then, Strong's emotions had seemed genuine, too, and Steve knew from experience that Natasha could put on a show when she wanted. By Megan's own admission, she and Strong had been raised by SHIELD to be... what? Perfect spies? America's version of the Black Widow program? “You could come with us,” he suggested, regardless. If she were genuine, she needed their help and maybe they could use hers. If she were dangerous, it would be better to know where she was.

“I despise all of you with the fire of a thousand volcanoes,” Megan said flatly, then wiped her nose again and sighed. “Where are you going?”

“Colorado Springs,” said Steve.

“We're trying to catch up with Strong and get to the bottom of this,” Natasha added.

Megan moaned. “I guess I owe him an ass-kicking for letting us get photographed,” she said. For a moment she hung her head, trying to hide her pained expression from them as she wrestled with the decision, then looked up again. “Can we stop by my apartment?” she asked plaintively.

“Is that safe?” Sam asked.

“I don't care if it's safe,” said Megan. “If I'm going _anywhere_ I need to get Goji. Toby wouldn't leave without his cameras, and I won't leave without Goji.”

“What's Goji?” asked Steve.

 


	4. Dinner and a Show

 Megan lived in a three-story apartment building on Sylvester Street, about twenty minutes' walk from the restaurant. It was a sad-looking property with short, balding grass, a metal fence, and no trees. The siding had once been while but was now yellow and stained, and the street was lined with power poles. Megan hurried in for her things and Natasha started unbuckling her seat belt to follow, but Steve grabbed her wrist to stop her.

“What if she runs off?” Natasha asked.

“Then let her,” said Steve. Megan had given them what sounded like all the answers she had, and they hadn't come here to kidnap anybody.

A few minutes later, Megan reappeared. She'd changed into a colourful oversized sweater and black leggings, and was carrying both a small suitcase and a larger rectangular object covered by a cloth. She pushed the latter into Steve's arms before climbing into the car – when he raised the cloth, he found a cage containing a small green parrot with a red beak.

“That's Goji,” said Megan.

The bird cocked its head at Steve and introduced itself: _Gojira! Gojira!_ it squawked.

Megan smiled and put a finger through the bars. “Who's the cutest little city-destroying monster in the world?” she cooed, as the parrot nibbled affectionately on her nails. “It's okay, baby, we're going for a drive in the car! You like that.”

 _Drive in the car!_ Goji agreed. It sounded pleased with itself.

Steve and Natasha shared a glance over Megan's head as she did up her seatbelt. Natasha didn't look like she had any better idea what to make of this than Steve did, but he was _sure_ she would agree that a pet bird was a _terrible_ thing to try to take along on a road trip, never mind for any sort of espionage.

“Okay.” Megan sat up and pulled Goji's cage into her lap. “Just drive. Before I change my mind.”

Sam flicked on the turn signal and pulled away from the curb. The bird made rustling noises in its cage, but there was no conversation in the car until they got onto the main road at Harry Hines Boulevard. As they passed through the Medical District, Megan looked up and said, “which route are we taking to Colorado Springs? Are we going through Wichita Falls?”

“We could,” said Sam. “What's in Wichita Falls?”

“Oh, a restaurant I haven't been to in ages,” said Megan, in the voice of somebody who was trying very hard to sound casual. “If I'm being dragged along on this I may as well eat some decent food.”

Sam caught Steve's eye in the mirror, but all Steve could do was shrug. He didn't know what might be in Wichita Falls that she wanted to do without them knowing about it. On the other hand, her forced offhandedness seemed so deliberate that it made Steve wonder if she _wanted_ them to be suspicious of her in order to divert their attention from something _else_. What could she hide by making them worry about where she wanted to go for dinner? Or was that crossing the line from 'careful' into 'paranoid'? Was he over-analyzing this? He wished he knew what to think – about Megan, or about anything else.

They arrived in Wichita Falls around seven, and found the restaurant according to Megan's directions. It was a little fast food place with the unpromising name of _Joe Cucumber's_ , in the middle of a strip mall between an H&R Block and a Lenscrafters. The menu was mostly vegan substitutes for traditional restaurant fare, with the slogan _convert your friends!_ Steve found the food all right, but he wasn't going to swear off meat on the spot.

They sky had clouded up and the temperature dropped during the afternoon, and now it was surprisingly chilly for Texas, even in February. The restaurant didn't seem to be heated, either, so they sat with jackets and sweatshirts on at a table by the front window, eating their veggieburgers and sweet potato fries. Megan had draped a towel over her shoulder so Goji could perch there, and the bird babbled intermittently while she fed it bits of tomato and lettuce out of her hand.

“What kind of bird is he?” asked sam.

“Goji is a rose-ringed parakeet,” Megan replied. “And she's actually a female. The males have a dark stripe around their necks.”

Sam took a piece of tomato out of his own burger and held it out, and the bird hopped onto his hand to nibble at it. “Why did you name her after Godzilla?” he asked.

“That's the name she came with.” Megan smiled fondly, stroking Goji's smooth green feathers. “Her first owner was a regular at the cafe. He'd been diagnosed with cancer, and he couldn't afford to keep his pets _and_ pay for his treatment, so I offered to take Goji. I adore birds,” she said. “If I could pick one superpower, I would want to _fly_.”

“I hear you there,” Sam nodded.

Steve watched this conversation without participating. He was glad that Megan was relaxing a little, and starting to think that maybe the restaurant _had_ been all she wanted. Something in him, however, was a bit upset that the person Megan had chosen to open up to was _Sam_. Of course, out of Steve, Sam, and Natasha, Sam _was_ the one who best qualified to be called a 'people person'. And Steve would have liked to think that Sam and Peggy would have liked one another... but... no, Megan was _not_ Peggy! Why had it been so much easier to separate Strong from Stark in his head? Was it the glasses? Had Clark Kent been right all along?

Megan leaned forward a bit, her face bright. “That's right!” she said to Sam. “You were one of the Falcons, weren't you?”

“Nowadays, I'm _the_ Falcon.” Sam grinned. “That's what all the newspapers said: _Captain America, Falcon, and Black Widow expose Nazi Conspiracy Inside Washington_!” Sam had collected a bunch of the more sensational headlines about the events and had the resulting collage professionally framed.

Megan's smile suddenly dropped. “Yeah,” she said, and turned to stare out into the parking lot.

“Hey,” said Sam gently. “We didn't know about you guys. We did what we thought we had to do. For what it's worth, we're sorry.”

“Yeah,” Megan repeated. “I just... I'll be right back. Hang on to Goji for me.” She gently scratched the top of the bird's head with one finger, then got up, hitched her purse up her shoulder, and headed into the ladies' room.

Steve wondered if somebody ought to go after her, but he couldn't imagine that whatever she'd wanted to stop in Wichita Falls for involved a restaurant bathroom. Instead, he nudged Natasha with his hip. “I _knew_ you knew who Peggy was,” he said. “You just wanted to see how I'd react.”

“Yep.” Natasha dipped a fry in ketchup. “You didn't react very much, actually, but you had a lot on your mind that week.”

He shook his head – all these months later it no longer seemed important. “What's your impression of Megan?”

“She needs some of those yoga classes the Cosmic Cafe was offering,” Natasha replied at once. “Very high-strung. Can't be good for her blood pressure.”

“You know what I meant,” Steve said.

“She seems okay to me,” Sam offered. “I don't know if we can believe _everything_ she says, but I don't think she's lying to us on purpose. She's a heart-on-her-sleeve kind of girl.”

Steve had noticed that, too – Megan didn't seem able to contain her emotions. That was probably what she'd been referring to when she'd called herself a _shitty secret agent_. Then again, why would she self-describe as a _shitty secret agent_ to people whom she must know would be on the lookout for secret agents? “I want to trust her,” he said. “But at the same time, I _don't_ want to.”

“She seems to be honest,” said Natasha, chewing thoughtfully on a fry, “but maybe not aware of everything. I read her as her first loyalty is to the people she considers her family, and she'll turn on us the moment she thinks we're a danger to them.”

Steve nodded. Movement caught his eye, and he looked up to see the ladies' room door open and shut, but the woman who stepped out was not Megan.

He felt torn. She'd been visibly upset when she left, and if she wanted to sit in the bathroom and cry for a while, then she deserved her privacy. Them hovering over her wouldn't make her feel any better, and anyway, he was the one who'd told Natasha to let her run away if she wanted to. At the same time, he _couldn't_ stop worrying, and it got worse the longer Megan was absent from the table.

“Natasha,” Steve said finally.

She stuffed one more fry in her mouth and stood up. “I'll check on her.”

Natasha hurried off to the ladies' room, and Steve sat impatiently fidgeting while Sam teased Goji, tempting the parakeet over and over to nip at a napkin. The two men's eyes met for a moment.

“She'll come back,” Sam said. “She told us she wouldn't go anywhere without her bird, remember?”

So she had – but was even _that_ reliable? Steve thought about Natasha, and her knack for tricking people into revealing their secrets before they even realized she'd asked a question. What if that was what Megan was doing now? He tried to replay in his mind everything he'd said since meeting her. What if somewhere in there had been what she'd wanted to know, and now she had run off to deliver the information to Strong?

Steve missed being able to trust people. He trusted Sam, of course, and Natasha, but it hadn't been all that long ago when he'd felt like he could trust his superiors, trust his co-workers, trust his neighbours. It had all been an illusion, of course, but it had been such a _comfortable_ illusion.

Natasha returned to the table at a fast walk and grabbed her bag. “She's gone,” she announced. “One of the waiters said she asked if she could go out the back door because she was hiding from an ex-boyfriend.”

All an illusion.

Steve threw some cash on the table to pay for their meal, and grabbed the rest of his burger to take with him. “Let's go. If she's on foot she won't have gotten very far.” If she'd found a ride, they might never see her again.

“You two stay back and let _me_ talk to people,” Natasha said as they left the building. “A woman looking for a friend gets help. Two big men looking for a girl get reported to the cops.” She glanced at Sam's hand, where Goji the parrot was still perched. “And hang on to the bird.”

A group of friends smoking behind the strip mall told Natasha they'd seen Megan walking away from the shopping complex heading southwest, which would have taken her to Kemp Boulevard. Natasha thanked them and followed, with Steve and Sam keeping up about a block behind, but it soon began to look as if they'd lost Megan permanently. Night was falling, and with the cold wind very few people were out and about. Somebody driving by might have seen Megan, but any such witnesses were already long gone. A man walking a small dog said he _might_ have seen a blonde in a dark coat go by, following the main street south, but he hadn't been paying particular attention.

The three continued in that direction anyway. They'd gone a couple of blocks, when Goji suddenly fluttered off Sam's arm and flew away down a side street.

“Hey!” Sam exclaimed.

The bird paid him no mind. They saw its tiny shape cast a shadow as it flew under a street lamp.

“ _Hey_!” Sam repeated. “Get your feathery butt back here! She told us to look _after_ you!” He ran after the vanished parrot, calling its name. Steve and Natasha, not wanting the group to get separated, followed.

They found Goji outside an ugly brick box of a condo building, chattering happily in a mix of whistles and sentence fragments while Megan, huddled in the shadow of a doorway, tried desperately to shush her pet. She moaned when she saw the group catching up with her.

“I was coming back!” she protested. “I _told_ you I was!”

“Yeah, but we figured it would be more like two minutes than twenty,” Natasha said.

“I just wanted to _check_ on him.” Megan's face crumpled. “Oh _fuck_.”

 _I love you, Mama, I love you_ , said Goji.

“I love you, too, Goji,” Megan sighed. She sat down on the step heavily, curling her knees to her chest against the cold air. “I didn't want anybody to know because I didn't want _him_ to have to drop everything and run, too,” she said, “but he's not answering the door.”

“Who's _he_?” asked Steve.

“Evan,” Megan replied. “Evan Grant.”

Maybe it was a good thing that all the clones had names that invoked Steve's own. Nobody needed to ask who _Evan Grant_ was.

“He could be at work,” Megan said forlornly. “He could be doing night shifts.”

Steve looked at Sam, then at Natasha, and saw both nod. They needed to know if Evan were all right, and to warn him. “We could leave him a note or something,” Steve suggested, a flutter in his stomach. He did want to meet one of his own clones, but at the same time, he dreaded doing so. Talking to Strong had been weird. Megan was worse. What would it be like to meet a person who was _himself_ – and yet not?

“Let me.” Natasha took an object out of her pocket, which at first appeared to be a folding knife. When she inserted the blade into the lock and squeezed the handle, however, there was a hissing sound followed by a clunk. She pulled her sleeve over her hand and turned the knob, and the door opened. They followed her inside.

“How much stuff did you steal when SHIELD collapsed?” Sam asked. He was directly behind Natasha. Megan followed him, and Steve brought up the rear. When Steve brushed against the doorknob on the way by, it found it was ice-cold, far colder than the chilly air could account for. That was probably some effect of her lock pick mechanism, but it was cold and breezy _inside_ the building, too, so much so that Steve could see his breath turning to mist. Somebody had left the air conditioning on full.

“I didn't steal it,” Natasha replied firmly. “This, the binoculars, and the ring were all in my car when it happened. Nobody's going to ask for them back, so they're mine now.” She stepped into the kitchen and turned on the light.

Steve was getting tired of surprises.

The condo's small kitchen was decorated in the earthy tones that Steve had learned were typical of the seventies. The wallpaper was faded and the linoleum was curling, and it had been a while since anybody had cleaned up: newspapers were spread out on the table, there were pots on the stove, and the dishwasher was open. Flies were buzzing around, but they weren't there for leftover spaghetti sauce. They were after the naked, bloated corpse on the kitchen floor.

“Shit,” said Sam, looking away.

“What? Oh, _no_ , please don't...” Megan tried to push past Sam for a look. Steve reached to stop her, but she ducked under his arm and shoved Sam aside. For a moment she stared at the body as if willing it to be a hallucination. Then she _screamed_. “No!” she wailed. “No, no, no, no, _no_! It's not fair! It's not fair!”

“Megan.” Sam put a hand on her shoulder. Steve expected her to push it away, like she had with his in the car, but instead she threw her arms around Sam and sobbed into his shirt.

Natasha took charge. “Take her outside,” she ordered. Sam nodded and wrapped his arm around Megan to escort her out. Once they were gone, Natasha turned to Steve. “Help me,” she said.

“But that's...” Steve gestured feebly to the body.

“Are you telling me _Captain America_ can't handle looking at a corpse?” she asked.

She was right – Steve _had_ seen plenty of dead bodies before now. Some of them had belonged to friends and colleagues, and he'd grieved for them. Some had been enemies, and he'd felt grim satisfaction. A lot of them had simply been faceless soldiers who happened to be on the other side of the fight. It was different, though, when the body was Steve's own flesh and blood. He hadn't been able to look into his mother's coffin at her funeral, and the body of Evan Grant was, in its own way, an even more intimate relation.

Natasha didn't have time for him to be indecisive. She was already kneeling next to the body, taking note of its injuries while touching it as little as possible. “His legs are both broken,” she observed, and then gently prodded the chest. “Several ribs, too, and a clavicle. He was beaten badly.”

“Same as Reeves,” said Steve, recalling the newspaper report of the young man's injuries. He got down on one knee and gingerly turned the corpse's head. It rolled limply, like a bowling ball in a bag. The texture of the clammy, loose skin made bile rise in the back of Steve's throat. “Injury to the left side of the neck,” he said. The articles he'd looked up online had mentioned some of the other clones having their throats cut, but this wasn't a long slice like Steve would have pictured. It was a short, precise cut that had been forced open to expose the left carotid artery – and yet, he realized, there was not a drop of blood on the floor. If Grant had been allowed to bleed out in his kitchen, he ought to have been lying in a pool of it.

Natasha gently flexed Grant's knee, inspecting the broken femur protruding from his thigh. “Rigor mortis has come and gone. That means he's been here at least three days. The marrow was taken.” She set the leg down and stood up, stepping over the body to wash her hands in the kitchen sink. “This wasn't done by any sort of weapon, HYDRA's or anybody else's. Somebody was in here, beat him senseless, and then bled him dry.”

“They can't want his DNA,” said Steve. “We know now that the serum didn't alter it.” If it had, the clone would have been Captain America – and might have been able to defend himself from this ruthless attacker. _This made no sense_.

Natasha dried her hands on the seat of her pants. “Wash up,” she said. “I'd say don't touch the towels, but your DNA is identical to his. Forensics won't even notice it.”

Steve looked at her, then back at the body on the floor. “We can't just leave him here,” he protested.

“Yes, we can,” Natasha said. “The person who finds a body is always the first person questioned in connection with the death. We don't have the time to explain this to the police. We don't even know what we'd be explaining.”

“So he's just going to lie there and... and rot?” Steve had a hard time dealing with that. This wasn't a battlefield. This was the poor man's _kitchen_.

“Somebody will find him,” said Natasha. “The landlord, or the police, or a neighbour. It just can't be us.”

And as much as Steve hated it, he knew she was right again. He'd left the body of Stan Reeves in the water after calling the police because he didn't want to attract attention. The same thing applied here, despite the domestic setting. He washed his hands, scrubbing hard to try and get the memory of the cold flesh out of his skin, and then followed her Natasha back outside. She shut the door behind them, sleeve over her hand again, and Steve realized that it wasn't to protect her palm from the cold metal. She just didn't want to leave fingerprints.

Sam was sitting on the front step with an arm around Megan, who was babbling through tears. Goji was perched on her collar preening her hair, murmuring _I love you Mama, I love you_ , over and over.

“He used to cook for us,” she was saying, “but it always turned out looking awful. The recipe book would have a photo of something crisp and colourful and his version would turn out all brown and limp. It looked like the sort of thing you'd find a picture of on instagram tagged _nailed it_.” She blew her nose. “It tasted great, though. We figured somewhere out there was a guy whose cooking _looked_ great but _tasted_ like cardboard, and when the two of them found each other and teamed up, they would rule the world!”

She didn't seem to notice that Steve and Natasha were back until Sam moved to look up at them. Then she raised her head for a moment before quickly lowering it again and fiddling with her handful of kleenex, trying to find a spot that wasn't already wet.

“What are we gonna do?” she moaned. “What are we gonna _do_?”

Sam grabbed the porch railing to help himself and Megan to stand. “It's time to go,” he said. “Come on.”

They walked back to the restaurant as a group and climbed into the car. Natasha drove this time – Sam was still trying to comfort Megan, and Steve was shaking too badly. He sat in the front passenger seat, gripping the handle above the window to the point of cracking the plastic as he tried to make himself calm down. Steve had been beaten up plenty of times before the serum, but never as thoroughly as Evan Grant. Never to the point of broken _bones_. He wondered if Grant had said anything to his attackers. Had he begged them for mercy? Or had he looked the assailants in the eye and told them, _I can do this all day_?

“Megan,” Natasha said softly.

“What?” Megan sniffled. She was still leaning on Sam, clearly not wanting to let go of the one person out of the three of them to whom she felt some connection.

“I know you're grieving,” said Natasha, “but I need to know: _when_ was Strong in your restaurant? The website had the time the photo was uploaded, but not when it was taken.”

“Day before yesterday.” Megan licked the corners of her mouth, grimacing at the salt taste of her tears. “Wednesday. About ten in the morning. We'd just opened.”

“How did he get there?” was Natasha's next question. “Had he rented a car?”

“No, he was in his cab. He'd been working for a taxi company in Orlando.”

Natasha nodded thoughtfully. “Grant's body showed no rigor mortis, and the abdomen was starting to bloat,” she said. “That means he died on Tuesday at the latest, maybe before that. It was cold in the apartment, and the alack of blood might have...”

“ _Oh my fucking god_!” Megan put her hands over her ears. “Shut _up_!”

“Hey, maybe we can talk about this when she's not around?” Sam suggested.

Natasha asked no more questions, but Steve had already figured out what she wanted to know. “Strong didn't do this, then,” he said softly, hoping Megan wouldn't hear. “He was still in Florida on Tuesday morning.”

“I didn't get to his place until midnight,” Natasha agreed, “so for all we know he was still there in the evening, too. Even if he left immediately after he dropped you off in Tampa, there's no way he could have _driven_ to Wichita Falls and arrived before early Wednesday morning. Even if he did, he would have had to _backtrack_ to be at the Cosmic Cafe by ten. There's just not time.”

“So Strong didn't kill Grant,” Steve repeated, “which means he probably didn't kill the others.” Between that and the _way_ the clones had died, it seemed their initial theory of a DNA targeting weapon was out. What did that leave, though? “They're after DNA. _My_ DNA.” In bulk, apparently. “It's no good for making super-soldiers, so what are they doing with it?”

“Maybe the serum is just dormant in the clones, and they're trying to figure out how to activate it,” said Natasha. “Maybe they're creating an engineered virus that will target you and only you. Maybe they want a way to _reverse_ the effects of the serum and change you back.” She shrugged. “That's just off the top of my head, of course.”

Steve gave her a sideways look, then laughed in spite of himself. “Boy, I'm glad you're on my side.”

“What can I say? I'm a worse-case-scenario kind of person,” she replied with a smile.


	5. Colorado Springs

The drive from Wichita Falls to Colorado Springs was not quite six hundred miles, so for the second time in as many days, they drove through the night. They couldn't afford to stop. Stopping would mean talking to people who might remember them later, or potentially being photographed. There might be a fan who wanted a picture of Steve, like Officer Gonzales, or somebody might just happen to catch them in a photo of something else, like the girls at the Cosmic Cafe. They couldn't take the risk.

Steve knew that – but when he thought about it, he realized that nobody had actually threatened them yet. The people behind all this were still in the shadows. Clones were dying, and somebody had wanted to keep Finster from talking, but there'd been no explicit threat to himself, or Sam and Natasha. Whoever they were, the bad guys weren't interested in Steve, only in his clones. That should have been reassuring, but instead it seemed all the more ominous.

In the back seat, Sam dozed intermittently. Steve would have liked to do the same, but every time he shut his eyes he saw Evan Grant's pale, dead face, so he sat awake and silently stewed in his thoughts.

Megan, however, seemed to feel a need to talk – and mostly, she talked about the clones. It seemed that she'd known all of them at least in passing, and Steve got the impression that she'd been _yearning_ to talk about them for ages but had never had the opportunity. Now that she had a captive audience who already knew about her unconventional origin, she couldn't stop.

“Stan and Toby got along, because they both liked movies,” she said. “Old movies, like Hitchcock and Scorsese. They'd make popcorn and sit up all night, watching these black and white horror movies and scaring themselves silly! I think Toby probably still does that. It'd explain why he drinks so much coffee. He scares the hell out of himself before bedtime, and then he can't sleep.”

A while later she said, “when we scattered and Clive said he was going to Houston, I was _sure_ he was going to try to get a job at NASA. Clive would have been happy scrubbing _floors_ if he could do it at NASA. When we were kids, they dressed us all up for Hallowe'en one year and ye was an astronaut, and he just wore that costume as clothes until it fell apart. When he found out his health problems meant he could never actually go to space, it just broke his heart. He was seven. He cried and cried. If he _wasn't_ working at NASA, I bet he hung around there all the time.”

And later still: “Dave was the Trekkie. He was _such_ a nerd.” Megan laughed as she said that, even though there were still tears in his eyes. “His ringtone used to be the theme song, the one from the 60's version. He had all these action figures, too, but he wasn't the kind of guy who would keep them intact in the box. He would take them out and have them all on a shelf over his desk. Lucinda used to rearrange them while he wasn't looking. She'd set them up so McCoy was holding Kirk down while Spock beat the hell out of him, or have Nurse Chapel giving the Gorn a lap dance or something.”

Steve didn't reply to her, or even ask questions, but he smiled in spite of himself as he listened. So those were his clones: a cook, a movie buff, a would-be astronaut. They weren't people Steve would have looked for in himself, but he wouldn't have looked for an angry vegetarian in Peggy, either, or a frightened taxi driver in Stark. That was probably the best thing, of course... Steve wasn't sure he could have handled the alternative.

The person who _did_ remind him of himself was actually Megan. When Steve and Sam had started off on their self-appointed mission months ago, Steve had tried to tell his new friend about Bucky. _Bucky was a writer_ , he'd said. _We'd talked about doing a comic book or novel together – he would write it and I would illustrate. It was always going to be some Allen Quartermain adventure thing, traveling the world to discover treasures and save fair maidens_. It had felt so _good_ to be able to share it with somebody who _cared_ , at the same time as his insides still ached from knowing what HYDRA had done, what Bucky had _been_ through.

When Steve finally found Bucky again, would there be anything left in him of that aspiring writer? Or had he seen far too much of the world and of what 'adventure' really was, even _before_ HYDRA got their claws into him?

* * *

In the morning their first stop was at a Wal-Mart off Route 87 in Fountain, so that Megan could buy some Tylenol – she'd been complaining of a furious headache. The store also had a McDonald's, where they got coffee and an acceptable approximation of breakfast, but they went back to the car to eat. If they sat in a restaurant, they might be noticed. Steve hated almost everything about being on the run, but this had to be the worst part: the lack of a place to sit down, of space to breathe.

“Does anybody want the rest of mine?” Megan held up her half-eaten cake of hash browns, which were the closest thing to a meatless breakfast she'd been able to find on the menu. “I feel sick.”

“I'll take them.” Steve reached back over the seat.

Megan did an excellent imitation of Peggy's unimpressed face, so much so that it was a bit startling to hear her speak without the accent.. “You're a pig,” she said, putting the package in his hand.

“I have a heightened metabolism,” Steve said. “It's the serum.”

“So _science_ made you a pig.” Megan shrugged. It seemed to make no difference to her. Was that really what Peggy would have thought of him, if he'd only met her _after_ becoming Captain America? That he was just a musclebound, thoughtless pig?

After eating, they headed up Academy Boulevard to the condo complex on Hartsock Lane where Agent Fa lived. This was a much newer and more attractive set of buildings than the barren, yellowing one Megan had lived in, or the utilitarian block of bricks where they'd found Evan. The units looked more like actual houses, and there were trees and landscaped sandstone walls to give the area some personality. A dust of snow was on the ground, and more flurries were beginning to drift down out of a silvery-gray sky.

“She's in number seventy-four.” Megan pointed. Toby's red and white cab was parked in the driveway of the unit.

It was Steve's turn in the driver's seat – he parked the rental car, then turned off the engine and considered their next step. “What's she going to think when we come to the door?” he asked. He didn't want her to immediately consider them a threat, as Megan had.

Megan shrugged. “I don't know. It'll depend on what Toby's told her.”

“Maybe you should go to the door first,” Natasha suggested, “since she knows you.”

Megan left Goji's cage in the back seat, buttoned up her coat and went to ring the bell. A few long seconds went by while everybody waited. Megan pulled up the collar of her jacket and stomped her feet, trying to keep warm in the chilly winter air. She rang the bell again.

This time, the door opened. Still in the car, Steve couldn't make out what Megan actually _said_ , but he heard what sounded like a happy greeting, and saw her hug a person who was only visible as a head of short silver hair. She spoke to this other for a minute or two, then turned and made a _come here_ gesture.

“I guess it's okay,” Steve decided. He climbed out.

Agent Amelia Fa was a small, wiry woman in her late fifties, with heavy-lidded brown eyes and a pixie haircut, dressed in a black turtleneck and brocade vest. She stood up straight as Steve approached, and held out a hand.

“Captain Rogers,” she said. “It's a great honour.”

Megan rolled her eyes and mouthed the words _it's a great honour_ with an annoyed expression.

“Thank you, Agent Fa,” Steve replied, shaking the offered hand. He wished he knew something more about this woman than just that she was Strong's surrogate mother. It would have been nice to be able to say something complimentary to her in return. “We're looking for Toby Strong. Is he here?”

“He's inside,” Agent Fa confirmed. “I don't think he'll be very happy to see you, though. He was under the impression he'd had a narrow escape from you in Florida.”

“Here I was thinking I'd had a narrow escape from _him_ ,” Steve said.

Agent Fa turned around to call up the stairs, as if telling a child his friend had come to play. “Toby! Megan's here!”

Megan had already kicked off her shoes and now she headed upstairs, where she turned a corner and vanished from sight. Steve heard her knocking on a door, and then Strong's voice exclaimed, “hey!”

There was a loud _thump_. “You oblivious _moron_!” Megan shouted. “We were _photographed_! Some duck-facing twat has pictures on her facebook with us in the background, for the whole fucking internet to see!” Something when _thud_.

“I'm sorry!” Strong protested. “I don't have eyes in the back of my head!” There was a second _thud_ , followed by a _crash_.

Steve looked at the others, to see if they thought they ought to intervene. Agent Fa, however, just shook her head. Sam's eyes were resolutely on Goji, whose cage he was carrying, and Natasha was suddenly very interested in her own fingernails.

“That's funny!” Megan said, “because _I_ was the one with my back to the camera!” There was a _twang_ , followed by the sound of a metallic object hitting something solid. “You're the fucking photography expert and you can't even spot a couple of bimbos taking a selfie! Next thing I know, Captain Crunch is trying to sneak up on me in the parking lot and the Black Widow's got a gun to my head and Evan is dead on his kitchen floor!” On the name _Evan_ , her voice suddenly broke. There was another metal sound – but then silence.

After a few seconds, Steve just couldn't take it anymore – he climbed the stairs two and a time and thew the bedroom door open, half expecting to find Strong choked to death with Megan on top of him. He found that the venetian blinds had fallen from the window and a desk lamp was on the floor, and the pillows from the bed were lying here and there as if they'd been used as weapons – which they probably had. But in the middle of the mess, Megan was weeping into Strong's shoulder while the two of them embraced like long-lost friends.

Agent Fa had followed Steve upstairs, and now she ducked under his arm to enter the room. “Is everybody okay?” she asked, putting a hand on Megan's back.

“No!” Megan wailed. “Evan and Stan and the others are all _dead_ and we don't even know _why_!”

Agent Fa picked up the fallen lamp, then offered Megan a tissue from the box on the dresser. “Blow your nose, _mei-mei_ ,” she said gently. “Then come downstairs, and I'll make some tea. It'll be all right,” she soothed.

On a list of things Steve would have expected to be doing while crossing the country looking into the murders of his clones, being invited in for tea would not even have appeared. But Agent Fa got the kettle on and settled everyone in her living room, bringing in a couple of extra chairs from the dining room so all seven of them would have a place to sit. She put a sheet on the carpet for Goji's cage to sit on, and draped an afghan around Megan's shoulders.

When the tea was ready, Megan got the first cup – she took it in both hands and held it under her nose to breathe in the steam. Strong, meanwhile, opened a tin of Royal Dansk butter cookies that was sitting on the coffee table, and began nibbling on one. Strong was not as deeply upset as Megan, but he was clearly nervous and the deep shadows under his eyes suggested he hadn't gotten nearly enough sleep in the past few days. Face-to-face with him, Steve felt a little bad for having assumed he was the bad guy. He now looked like exactly what Steve had first taken him for: a helplessly frightened young man who just happened to have the face of Tony Stark.

_Cookie_? Goji asked hopefully.

“ _Don't_ give her a cookie,” Megan ordered, when Strong looked at her for permission. “They're bad for her.” There were still tears in her voice, but the ones in her eyes were drying.

_Cookie_? Gojir repeated. _I love you._

Strong pointed at the pleading bird.

“No,” Megan repeated. “They're empty calories.”

“She's giving me puppy eyes,” Strong protested. “I didn't know birds could _do_ that.”

“Mama says _no_.” Megan shook a stern finger at her pet.

It was probably her tone or the gesture, rather than her words, that prompted the reaction, but the little parrot hung its head and said, _okay, okay_.

“Here we are,” Agent Fa said, returning to the room with a tray of more tea cups. The cups were silky smooth porcelain with no handles, glazed the colour of pale jade. “I'd say help yourselves to the cookies,” she added, with a frown at Strong, “but it looks like Toby already did.”

Natasha reached into the tin as if she'd only been waiting for permission.

Steve cleared his throat. “I, uh, hate to be the guy who turns this back into an interrogation,” he said, “but there's something I need to know. Are there any more of you two?” He pointed at Megan and Strong. “I'm not going to suddenly run into _another_ Stark, am I?” Or another Peggy. He wasn't sure which would be worse.

Megan shook her head, still staring into her teacup.

It was Strong, this time, who explained. “They weren't very good at making clones in the early nineties,” he said. “Our survival rate was about one in fifty, so if they were lucky they got one viable embryo out of a batch of four dozen. And four dozen was about all they could get out of one sample back then. If you copy the DNA too many times, the errors start to add up.”

One in fifty. Steve didn't _want_ to think about that math, but it was too late: to get fourteen live clones of _him_ , the project would have had to start off with about seven _hundred_. What would anybody _do_ with seven hundred super-soldiers if they had them?

_I asked for an army, and all I got was you._

“All right,” said Steve. “I guess Sam and Natasha and I will head up to the base and check it out.” He looked at his friends and saw them both nod.

“You mean the old SHIELD research center?” asked Agent Fa. “You won't find anything. There's nothing in there anymore. The Air Force was right upstairs. After you exposed HYDRA, they cleaned the place out. Arrested everybody, confiscated all the files and equipment, everything.”

“They did? Good for them.” Most of the time when Steve heard about a HYDRA outpost, it was one that _hadn't_ been taken care of. It was nice to know that somebody out there was doing their job. “In that case, we'll ask them if we can look at the documentation.” He couldn't imagine that the Air Force would throw away or destroy anything that might be evidence in the round of trials Washington was preparing. If Steve, Sam, and Natasha explained what they needed, hopefully they could get real help instead of having to sneak around behind everybody's backs.

That just left the question of what to do about Strong and Megan. “You two,” Steve said, nodding at them, “you should probably leave the country as soon as you can. We _think_ they only want _my_ clones, but we can't be sure at this point.”

Fresh tears rose in Megan's eyes. She bit her lip.

“Where are we supposed to go?” Strong asked. “We don't have passports. We don't even have birth certificates.”

“Does anyone have some paper?” Natasha asked around a mouthful of cookie. Agent Fa found her a notepad and pen, and she began writing something down. “This email address will get you in touch with Dr. Bruce Banner,” she said, tearing the page off and giving it to Strong. “Put the name _Mr. Green_ in the subject line, and tell him we sent you. Banner has gotten _himself_ across international borders before without attracting any attention. He'll be able to help _you_ do it. I can't promise that you absolutely won't be found or followed,” she warned, “but it'll be easier for you to hide from HYDRA once you leave the US.”

“Why would Dr. Banner help us?” asked Megan.

“Because I told him to,” Natasha replied. “And because he's a nice person. Don't let him lie to you. He is.”

“I'm sorry I scared the both of you,” Steve said. “I'm sorry you lost your jobs, and Megan, I'm sorry we had to kidnap you.” He sighed heavily. “I'm not sure I know what's right anymore,” he admitted, “but I do know what isn't, and it isn't right that anyone else should get hurt because of me.”

Agent Fa gently took Megan's wrist. “There's a guard outpost halfway up the mountain, disguised as a ranger cabin,” she said to the two clones. “It was SHIELD, not Air Force, so nobody should be in there now. You two can hide out there for a day or so, until you can get in touch with Dr. Banner. It's going to be okay,” she repeated, giving Megan's hand a comforting squeeze. “You won't end up like they did.”

“Why did _they_ have to end up like they did?” Megan whimpered.

“There aren't any clones of _Banner_ around by any chance, are there?” Sam asked cautiously. Steve glanced at Natasha, and from the look in her eyes was pretty sure she was having the same mental picture as he: half a dozen Hulks, tearing a city into confetti.

“Nobody had ever heard of Bruce Banner twenty years ago,” said Strong. He cradled his teacup in one hand so he could rub Megan's back with the other. “He was just starting out. So was Stark, but Stark was part of a legacy. They _knew_ he would turn out to be a genius with weapons, and they wanted one of their own.” He grimaced.

“And you're not?” Steve asked. When he thought about it, that was surprising. Intelligence, of a particularly bloodthirsty sort, clearly ran in the Stark family. Why _shouldn't_ Strong be able to do what Howard and Tony did?

“It's just never been what I was good at. Never been what I was _interested_ in.” Strong shrugged, uncomfortable. “I guess... you can start with the same seed, but if you plant it in different dirt it's not gonna grow the same tree.” It didn't sound as if he'd come up with that metaphor on the spot, and Steve wondered just how long and how deeply he'd thought about that.

“I'm guessing the Air Force probably won't buy cops, reporters, _or_ lawyers,” Sam noted.

“Probably not,” Steve agreed. “I guess they'll just have to get superheroes.”

* * *

Only about an hour after the party had arrived at Agent Fa's, Strong packed up his things and everybody piled into two vehicles: Steve, Sam, and Natasha went in the car they'd rented in Tampa, and Strong and Megan in the red and white cab. Strong had his suitcase, full of carefully packed antique cameras, and Megan was cradling Goji's cage. Steve wondered what the other clones would have taken away with them, if they'd been given a chance to escape.

The cab went first, leading the way up the mountain on winding NORAD Road, until Agent Fa had to turn left onto a long-disused dirt track to get to the guard station she'd mentioned. Sam waved goodbye as they vanished around a corner, and Steve saw Megan return the gesture, her face in shadow. Then they were gone, and the three superheroes continued up the main road to the parking lot outside the base.

There was a gate at the entrance, and a guard waved for them stop stop as she emerged from the booth at the side of the road.

“Morning!” she said, coming closer to talk to them. Sam rolled down the window so that she could see in. “Welcome to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. Do you guys have a...” Then her eyes drifted past Sam and found Steve, and she did a startled double-take. “ _Captain America_?” she squeaked.

Three military personnel had been standing just inside the gate, conferring about something. They all looked up in unison at the cry.

“Yes,” Steve said. He wondered if this woman, like Officer Gonzales, were going to want a photo. “That's me.”

“Oh my god!” the woman exclaimed, hands over her mouth – then she collected herself and stood up straight to salute, which she did with such enthusiasm that she nearly tore her hair out of its neat auburn bun. “Sir! Airman First Class Louise Banks, Sir!” The three men had ducked under the gate and were coming closer to look for themselves, and Banks turned to them with a bright grin on her face. “Look who's here!” she pointed to the car, bouncing on her toes in delight.

A black man in sergeant's stripes leaned down to look in the passenger-side window, making Steve feel like a fish in a tank. “This is a privilege!” he said. “Captain Rogers, what can we do for you? Are you here to look at the mess we cleaned up last May?”

“Yes, actually,” said Steve.

“We've gotten wind of some nasty stuff hiding in your basement,” Sam added.

“I can only imagine,” the sergeant agreed. “I'll have somebody take you to General Cordero.”

“I'll do it!” One of the junior airmen raised his hand as if he were in school.

“Good.” The sergeant nodded. “We're pleased to have you here, Captain America. This way, please.” Airman Banks opened the gate, and the sergeant waved them through.

Sam parked the car in the guest lot, and they climbed out to meet their volunteer guide – a tall, broad-shouldered young man of about twenty. He had a long nose, blue eyes, and ash-brown hair, and his face gave Steve a disquieting sense of _deja vu_. Where had he seen this young man before? He couldn't remember.

It seemed, however, that Sam could. “Wait, wait, hold up!” Sam raised his hands. “What is this? More clones? You're dead!”

That was when Steve noticed the name embroidered on the pocket of the young man's Air Force-issued winter jacket. _Finster_. No wonder his face was familiar – it was the same one they'd seen circled in red on the news report in Tampa.

“I'm... what?” Airman Finster stared at Sam, frowning. “No, I'm not.”

“Yes, you are!” Sam turned to Steve for confirmation. “We saw him frozen stiff in the shipyard on Tuesday!”

Steve's head was swimming. 'RedWolff06' had been a clone? Well, if that were the case then it made sense that he was connected with this whole mess. Was his 'shipment of weapons' something to do with cloning after all? Had he said _weapons_ only because he thought Steve and Sam wouldn't believe _clones_? And who was he a clone _of_?

Airman Finster blinked a couple of times, and then made the connection. “Oh,” he said, crestfallen. “Rudy.”

“What's going on?” asked Natasha.

“Rudy,” Airman Finster repeated. His posture, which had so far been military and erect, sagged. “I'm Randy. Rudy and Randy. Rudolph and Randolph. We're twins. We _were_ twins,” he corrected himself quickly. “I did hear about... I mean, Dad called me yesterday,” he stammered. “So I know that Rudy was... yeah.”

_Twins_. Genetically identical, but by accident of nature, not intervention of man. Steve rubbed at the corners of his eyes – maybe he _was_ going crazy.

“I'm sorry for your loss,” said Sam sheepishly. “I think I must be getting paranoid.”

“Thanks,” Finster replied, talking awkwardly to his shoes. “Rudy was... we're a military family, but he wanted to go off and do his own thing. I don't ow what he got mixed up in, but I kept telling him to get out of it. Why didn't he _listen_ to me? All he... I'm sorry.” Finster caught himself and straightened up, trying to recover his bearing. “This way. I'm sure the general will be happy to meet you.”

Nobody took much note of the group as they headed down the tunnel and into the base. Nobody was shouting Steve's alias now, and the presence of their guide meant that these three strangers in civilian clothes must have permission to be here. Natasha walked like she belonged no matter where she went, and Steve and Sam had been trying to cultivate a similar attitude. In fact, the member of the party who looked _least_ comfortable was Airman Finster. Steve wasn't going to hold it against him, though. This was something Steve rarely _saw_ when he was working, but often thought about: the _cost_.

It didn't matter a bit to HYDRA – killing off 'undesirable' people was just a part of their program – but it mattered to Steve. Toby Strong watching every driver who passed him, afraid for his life. Megan weeping for the death of Evan Grant and babbling distractedly about her lost friends all night. And now Randy Finster, trying to do his job when his brother had been murdered. It _mattered_.

Finster pressed a button to summon an elevator. “At this point,” he said, standing with his hands behind his back as if reciting at a spelling bee, “I must advise you that Stargate Command is off-limits to visitors.”

“Well, that's no fun,” Sam said.

“Sorry. Orders are orders,” said Finster.

His heart was clearly not in the joke. The elevator doors opened, and as they stepped in, Steve said, “we're going to find them, Airman Finster. The people who killed your brother. They _will_ be brought to justice, I promise you.”

“Thank you, Captain Rogers,” Finster said quietly. The doors closed again behind them, and the young soldier licked his lips as the elevator began to descend. “What was Rudy _doing_ in Florida? He said he was onto something big. He said I was going to be seeing his face on the news.” Finster winced as he realized what he'd just said. “He was _right_ , wasn't he?” he asked mournfully.

“That's what we're trying to find out,” Steve said. “He said there were weapons being smuggled into Argentina by a HYDRA cell. We're hoping to learn more from the materials you confiscated when the SHIELD facility here was shut down.”

Finster nodded.

The elevator stopped, and the doors rumbled open on a long hallway lit by unpleasant fluorescent tubes. “Follow me, please,” Finster said.

The hallway seemed to go on for miles, and Steve wondered if Finster intended to take them all the way to the end of it. Linoleum floors, waist-high railings on the walls, and empty hand sanitizer bottles fixed next to the doors made it look like an old hospital, and there was an oppressive sense of the sheer _mass_ of the mountain above them that seemed to squeeze the air out of Steve's lungs. Pieces of furniture abandoned in the hallway were covered with dust, and almost all the doors were standing open, their locks and knobs removed. The rooms beyond were dark, their contents invisible.

One door _was_ shut and locked. It had a small rectangular window in it, but only darkness was visible. Four small holes and an area of slightly brighter paint showed where there had once been a sign fixed next to the window. Below that a sheet of laminated paper was attached to the door with flaking, yellowed packing tape. This read _NO METAL OBJECTS PERMITTED_.

Finster pulled a key ring out of his pocket. “This was part of the infirmary for the SHIELD complex,” he explained as he unlocked the door. “When we shut them down we put a lot of their stuff in here. Files and some of their equipment.” He held the door open for the group to enter, and turned on the light.

The room beyond had a high ceiling with visible pipes and ducts, and walls painted a slightly nauseous shade of pale green. It was piled full of stuff taken from the SHIELD labs. Whoever decided to use it as storage clearly hadn't read the remaining sign – the stash included stacks of folding metal chairs and rows of filing cabinets, along with a variety of dusty high-tech equipment piled around and partially inside a decommissioned MRI machine. Natasha headed straight for the nearest cabinet and, finding it unlocked, opened a drawer to look inside.

“You guys should have seen this place before,” Finster added. “The guy in charge had all these _jars_ in his office with stuff in them like dead animals and mutated things. There was a baby whale,” he remembered. “A little tiny one, just this big.” He held his hands about eighteen inches apart. “All pale and floating in alcohol. And stuff like two-headed babies. It looked like something out of a movie. General Cordero had it all incinerated.”

Steve shivered.

“Yeah, take a look around,” said Finster, as Natasha sorted through the drawers. “I'll, uh, go get the general. He'll want this to be off the record at least at first. Wait here.” He slipped back out and shut the door behind him. The lock closed with a click, apparently automatically, and maybe it was just the general creepy atmosphere of the place that made it seem there was something terribly ominous about the sound.


	6. Spider and Fly

Nobody wanted to just stand around waiting for the general to arrive, so Steve and Sam joined Natasha in making a cursory search of the room. Steve went to poke through a desk that had been pushed into a corner, but found its drawers empty. Sam examined some of the medical equipment, perhaps trying to figure out what these machines were for. Natasha continued methodically checking filing drawers, opening and closing them one after the other, flipping through the contents with her fingertips.

“What are you looking for?” Steve asked her.

“Anything that isn't just another one of these,” Natasha replied, pulling out a manila folder. She opened it and frowned at the contents. “SGR-Λ14,” she read off the label. “Looks like one of yours.” She handed the folder to Steve and continued her search.

Steve opened it for a look. Inside was a slim bundle of notes and forms, and a photograph of a sad-looking little boy with blond hair and freckles, wearing a Kermit the Frog t-shirt. Beyond the _SGR-Λ14_ label – clone fourteen from batch lambda – there was no identifying information. Much of the rest of the file consisted of notes about the boy's chronic poor health: asthma, repeated ear infections that had eventually left him deaf, and finally pneumonia. The last entry simply read: _1996/07/07 – death occurred 3:20 PM._

Something touched Steve's shoulder. He dropped the folder and spun into a fighting stance, but it was only Sam.

“How are you holding up?” Sam asked quietly.

Steve's jump had answered that question for him, so he didn't bother trying to lie. “I'm not sure,” he said. He hadn't had time to properly take this all in and process it. All he really knew was that he was angry – a cold, hard lump of anger had settled in his chest and was sitting there like a tiny black hole, slowly but inexorably growing. The boy in the file hadn't even had a _name_. He'd been a commodity. A _specimen_.

How had the adult clones gotten names? Had they chosen them for themselves, or had they been named by their caretakers? Were their names some kind of _reward_ for those who survived beyond a certain age?

“Stay cool,” said Sam. He gave Steve's shoulder a squeeze. “We got Pierce, remember? We can get this.”

“Thanks.” Steve nodded.

“Here's something,” Natasha announced.

The two men looked up. She'd found a padlocked metal box, about half the size of a suitcase, in one of the drawers.

“It's not particularly heavy,” she said, shaking it experimentally. “I can feel something sliding around inside it.” She knelt down on the floor and took a paper clip out of her pocket. Steve and Sam came closer to watch. For a moment the only noise in the room was that of her fiddling with the lock – then there was a soft sound. A furtive rush of air, like a cat landing.

As one, Steve, Sam, and Natasha stopped moving. The back of Steve's neck prickled as he tried to look around the room without actually turning his head, but he couldn't spot anyone beside the three of them. Perhaps it was nothing, but the noise had touched off his soldier's instincts. His muscles tensed. If anyone had tapped Steve on the shoulder at _that_ moment, he would have thrown them across the room before he knew what he was doing.

Suddenly, Natasha snatched the box off the floor, and there was a blur of movement followed by the _clang_ of metal hitting metal. When Steve's brain caught up with his eyes, he saw Natasha on one knee, with the box raised to protect her head from a blow delivered by a second woman: a small but muscular brunette, who appeared to have jumped down from on top of the MRI machine. There was a ceiling panel missing there – maybe that was where she'd gotten in. When the brunette pulled her hand back, Steve saw that she'd left a dent in the box lid, in the shape of her bloodied knuckles.

The first half-second passed in slow motion while Steve took all this in. A moment later, everything snapped back into real time, and the brunette was shaking her hand and preparing another punch.

“Get out,” Natasha ordered the men. “I'll take her!”

As they ran for the door, Natasha swung the metal box, driving it into her opponent's abdomen. The other woman doubled up, winded, but recovered almost at once – she did a somersault and bounced to her feet to attack Natasha from the other side. Natasha managed to block with her arm, but gasped at the impact, as if it hurt far more than she'd expected. The brunette seized her moment of hesitation. She grabbed Natasha's left wrist, ducked under her arm, and threw her bodily against a bookshelf stacked with old journals and binders. Paper and plastic showered down on Natasha as she fell to the floor, curling up with one arm over her head in case something heavy landed on her.

Sam had made it to the door, but when he tried the handle, it wouldn't budge. Steve remembered the clicking sound. Had Airman Finster _deliberately_ locked them in with this woman?

“Shit,” Sam swore, rattling the handle. “I need...” he patted his pockets. “A wire. A bobby pin. Anything.”

Steve had no such item on himself, either – it was Natasha who'd been carrying both the lock pick jackknife device and the paper clip she'd tried to use on the padlock. And Natasha was far too busy to help them open the door. She was up again, widening her stance to continue fighting, but she was clearly injured: her left arm was hanging limp at her side.

“Find something,” he told Sam, and ran to help Natasha.

Twice, Natasha managed to dodge the brunette and once fool her with a feint, but her moves were all defense now. Somehow this other woman had outmatched her. Another Black Widow agent, maybe? It didn't matter. The brunette managed to spin Natasha into her and get a hold of her throat with one hand. The set of her shoulders made it clear that she was going to _twist_.

Steve seized one of the full filing cabinets and swung it into the brunette as hard as he could. She went down with the full weight of cabinet and contents on top of her, leaving Natasha kneeling on the floor, gasping and clutching at her throat.

“You okay?” Steve grabbed her good arm and helped her up.

Natasha nodded urgently. “Shoulder dislocated. We gotta go.” She pulled the lock pick knife out of her jacket pocket.

With a crash, the filing cabinet rolled off the brunette. She grabbed the MRI table for support as she got back to her feet, and Steve stared. After he'd thrown that at her, she ought to have had crushed ribs. She should at least be _bruised_. There was blood on her white t-shirt, but she was up and ready to fight again like nothing had happened. Steve's own healing was accelerated because of the serum, but not like _that_.

She lunged at them.

“Go with Sam!” Steve pushed Natasha out of the way, and the brunette plowed into him like a train. It was no wonder Natasha had gasped. The woman seemed to weigh twice as much as she ought to, and every ounce of it was rock solid muscle. Her sheer inertia threw Steve against another cabinet, banging the back of his head so that he saw stars. When his vision cleared, it was to the sight of the brunette's fist heading for his face. Steve reached out and yanked out the drawer above him to slow the punch. There was an awful metallic screech, and he found himself staring at two long, thick blades, like bayonets, that had pierced the bottom of the drawer and stopped a bare half inch from his face.

He rolled out from under the woman and got up, wishing not for the first time that he'd tried harder to find his shield in the wreckage the feds had dredged out of the Potomac. But it was too late for that now. When he glanced at the door he saw that Natasha had gotten it open, and Sam was pushing her into the hall ahead of him.

The brunette seemed to have her hand stuck in the drawer, but she wrenched it free with a spray of paper and another ugly noise of metal scraping metal. It turned out that the two blades were not knives in her hand: they were physically part of her, eight inches of metal protruding from her knuckles. She had another set on the other fist. Steve had never seen anything like it. What _was_ she?

Whatever she was, she was between Steve and his friends. Sam and Natasha were lingering in the door, not wanting to leave without him. And the brunette had now seen them there.

“Get out! Get out!” Steve urged them. This woman felt like she was made of stone, but he could take harder hits than either of the others. He could buy them time to escape – and after that, he'd just have to wing it. The brunette had turned to go after his friends, so Steve wound up and kicked the brunette in the base of the spine. It felt like kicking a concrete block. She barely even stumbled.

It did get her attention, though. She rounded on Steve, slashing at his abdomen. He jumped back, but her metal claws caught his shirt and the skin beneath. Blood began seeping into the torn fabric. Steve retaliated and managed to land a punch to the woman's ribs, but once again it barely had an effect. It was as if her bones were made of steel.

Steve managed to dodge the next few attacks, ducking and twisting as she slashed at his arms and legs in the attempt to disable him. A blade nicked his ear and shaved off a few strands of hair. Another cut through his jeans and scraped the skin underneath. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw Natasha charge back into the room. She took the camera ring from her finger and tossed it to the ground, ripped off her necklace, pulled out her earrings, and then dropped to the floor and slid under the MRI machine.

Steve figured out what she was about to try to do and why, but in watching her he'd momentarily let his guard down. The brunette hit him in the back of the head, where he was already tender from hitting the cabinet, and he fell face-down to the floor, dazed. She knelt on his back, and his shoulder caught fire as the blades in her knuckles went right through it, stapling him to the linoleum below. Steve turned his head as far as he could, trying to look her in the eye, and saw...

... not much. Her eyes were hazel, but the pupils were so dilated, as if she were drugged, that it was hard to tell. Her expression was cold and feral, distant yet determined, and Steve realized he'd _seen_ that before. This woman wasn't about to kill him because she _wanted_ to. She was doing it because she'd been _told_ to, by someone who'd made sure she had absolutely no choice in the matter.

Steve heard a thump and a whirr, and Natasha shouted, “watch out!”

Suddenly, everything in the room that wasn't bolted down began moving towards the MRI. Stacks of metal chairs came apart like a deck of cards in a breeze and flew to stick to the giant electromagnet. Filing cabinets scraped across the floor inch by slow inch, carving deep scratches into the linoleum as they went. The metal bookshelf Natasha had fallen against slid into the machine and crumpled like paper. Smaller objects, like a set of screwdrivers and the rings of a binder, spun through the air and stuck. The box Natasha had used to defend herself tumbled end over end and broke open, spilling a stack of leather-bound notebooks onto the floor. Steve's watch tore itself from his wrist, cutting him as it went, and the change in his pocket took on a sudden life of its own.

The brunette jammed her other pair of claws into the floor to keep herself from being pulled backwards, her face contorting in concentration, but a moving cabinet suddenly tipped over and struck her. Her claws were ripped free from Steve's shoulder, and she tumbled head over heels onto the magnet and stuck there upside-down, still silent even as she struggled in obvious pain. A moment later, the cabinet slammed into the MRI right on top of her.

Natasha wiggled out from under the machine. “Let's go! Let's go!' she shouted. She dragged Steve to his feet with her good arm. His head was spinning a bit from the pain of his injuries, but he was able to lean on Natasha and stagger towards the door.

Sam, miraculously unhurt, looped Steve's other arm over his shoulder and the three of them hurried for the elevator. As they got close, however, without any warning at all the lights went out. The base – or at least, that part of it that had once been SHIELD – was out of power. No power meant no elevator, and down in the deepest part of the mountain, it would quickly mean no _air_.

“Oh, come _on_!” Sam shouted into the sudden darkness.

For a moment nobody moved. Steve waited for his eyes to adjust, but there was nothing for them to adjust _to_. In a building above ground, _some_ light could have filtered in, even to the interior rooms, but down here there was only blackness. Then the red emergency lighting flickered on, showing them the dim outlines of doorways and old furniture. It wasn't much, but at least now they wouldn't walk into any walls.

Steve tried to ignore the searing pain in his shoulder as he considered their options. They couldn't get out via the elevator – it wouldn't be running, and neither he nor Natasha were in any shape to climb the shaft. Sam could, but any number of things could happen to prevent a single person returning with help, and in the mean time the two injured members of the party would remain trapped. With the power out, the MRI machine's electromagnet would turn off, and it wouldn't take the brunette long to heal her injuries and get up again.

“Down the hall,” he decided. “There's got to be another way out.” There would be stairs somewhere. Some kind of emergency exit. “Check the side rooms.”

They made their way back down the hall, trying every door in turn. The rooms beyond were still unlit, and only the barest shadows of their interiors were visible. All seemed to be hospital rooms with two or three beds, stripped of mattresses and covers. There was no other entrance to any of them.

As they passed the MRI room, there was a metallic crash from within in. For a second time, all three froze while time seemed to stop. Steve felt a bead of sweat run down the back of his shoulder, then sting furiously as the salt got into one of his stab wounds. He grimaced, gritting his teeth and shutting his eyes in the effort of not making a sound.

The brunette did not appear, though. When they dared peek into the room, they found that the crash had merely been equipment falling over. The woman with the claws had vanished back to wherever she'd come from.

Once they got past the MRI room, they started finding old offices. These, like the bed rooms, had mostly been emptied. In one, there was a flash of motion as some small animal dashed under a desk out of sight. Another had no furniture, just a giant metal door like a bank vault's, firmly shut. A third turned out to be a men's washroom, with all of the urinals removed except for one, in which something had built a nest.

It was while they searched the washroom that they heard _another_ unwelcome sound. This one was a metallic _scraping_ , like something heavy being pushed across a floor, and it was followed by what could only be human footsteps.

Sam whispered a curse. “You two are injured,” he said. “Stay here.” Like Natasha, he'd left his guns in the car at the Air Force's request. He began looking around the room for a makeshift weapon, and found a discarded piece of pipe.

“We can't afford to let _you_ get hurt, too,” Natasha protested in a whisper.

“But _you_ can't afford to get any more hurt than you already are,” Sam replied. He eased the washroom door open.

Light flooded in. In the red-tinted darkness it was so brilliant that Steve thought for a moment that the sun was directly in his face. A few moments later, however, he realized it was just an LED flashlight in the hands of a person visible only as an indistinct dark shape behind the brightness. The person looked female, but was too tall and thin to be the brunette from the MRI room. The outline of her clothing – a bulky top, but tight trousers – was familiar.

“Sam!” exclaimed a voice.

“Megan!” Sam replied, sounding as surprised and relieved as she. “How did you know we'd be down here?”

“You're never gonna believe who barged in on us at the cabin,” Megan's voice replied. The flashlight beam moved as she leaned around Sam to look for Steve and Natasha. “You're hurt! Do you think you can climb a ladder?”

“We can definitely try,” Natasha said.

“This way!” The beam rotated away from them again. They got up to follow it.

Megan led them back two rooms, to the one with the big metal door. This was now standing open, and Toby Strong was sitting on the floor, his face lit harshly from below by the glow of a laptop screen. When the group entered, he closed the computer with a snap, slid it back in its case, and slung the strap over his shoulder.

“You guys go first,” he said, as he got to his feet. “I'll shut the door.”

“You followed me?” Megan asked. “Where's Fenstermacher?”

“Don't worry, he's not going anywhere,” Strong assured her. “Everybody up!”

Beyond the door was a tiny room, the size of a bathroom stall, with bare cinder-block walls. There were two crushed soda cans in one corner, and a broken coffee mug with the image of Steve's shield on it, making him wonder once again who was making this merchandise. There was no light fixture or even a socket, but the beam of Megan's flashlight showed a metal ladder that continued up into an unpleasantly narrow vertical shaft. What had appeared to be a vault was actually the emergency exit they'd been looking for.

Megan went first, holding the flashlight in her teeth so they would have some light. Natasha followed, climbing with her good right arm while the dislocated left one still dangled uselessly. Steve went behind her, and then Sam, with Strong bringing up the rear – if Natasha lost her one-armed grip, the men could hopefully break her fall and help her.

It was a long, slow, painful climb. The shaft went up and up into darkness and more darkness, and Steve's injured shoulder soon gave out on him, leaving him climbing one-handed like Natasha. If they didn't reach the top soon, Sam and Strong were going to have to catch _him_.

Finally, Megan pushed open a trapdoor and scrambled out into what seemed like an unbearably bright room after the darkness inside the mountain. She reached down to help Natasha, and then the two women together dragged Steve out onto the dusty hardwood floor of the ranger cabin. Sam and Strong climbed out last, while Megan and Steve helped Natasha over to sit on the sofa.

The cabin interior was self-consciously rustic, with visible beams in the walls and rafters in the roof. There was a brightly-coloured area rug on the floor in front of the fireplace, and a throw with an American flag pattern on the sofa. It looked dusty and disused, but not utterly neglected the way the old infirmary had been. In fact, it looked like it might still be inhabited, if the person living there didn't have a lot of clutter and wasn't very interested in housekeeping. Or just wanted to make it _look_ like nobody was home.

Strong blew the dust off a first aid kit and tossed it to Megan, then grabbed Sam's sleeve. “Help me with this?” he asked. While Megan pulled things out of the kit, then two men left the room and came back pushing an empty refrigerator, which they placed on its side on top of the trapdoor so nobody could follow them up.

“Let's get you out of your jacket,” Megan said to Natasha. “I'll make you a sling.” She'd found a piece of fabric in the first aid kit, and was now folding it into a triangle. “I'm a qualified field medic, but you really need to get to an emergency room. This will hold you until then. Toby,” she added, “have they got power back yet?”

Strong opened his laptop again and checked. “Yeah. The military doesn't waste time. Tracing the hack will keep them distracted for a little while. All they'll be able to see is that it came from the base's own wifi. They'll look in here eventually, though.”

“ _You_ shut the power off?” asked Steve. Insofar as he'd had time to think about any of this, he'd assumed that was part of what was apparently an overall plot to kill all three of them by locking them in the dark with a brainwashed superhuman assassin. “What happened to you guys?”

Megan looked up from working with Natasha's arm. “Seriously?” she asked. “You've got your shoulder sliced open like a chuck roast.” She nodded to Steve, and he looked down and realized for the first time just how badly cut up he was. His t-shirt and hoodie were both stained and stiff with blood. “If that had hit the subclavial artery you'd already be dead, and you're asking what happened to _us_?” said Megan.

“I _know_ what happened to _us_ ,” Steve pointed out.

“Yeah, we were attacked by a human Cuisinart,” Sam said.

Megan looked at Strong again. “Well?” she asked. “Where is he?”

“Bathroom,” Strong replied.

“You idiot, there's a window in the bathroom!” said Megan.

Strong didn't seem bothered. “He won't use it. There's a great big spider in it.

“Nobody's _that_ afraid of spiders,” Megan said skeptically.

“Yeah? Wait until you see the spider.” Strong gave her a smug smile.

Megan finished pinning Natasha's sling in place, then made Steve turn around so she could look at the back of his head. “There's blood in your hair,” she said, tearing open a package of disinfecting wipes, “but head wounds bleed like mad. If you had a concussion you'd be showing symptoms by now.” She started cleaning him up. “What have you _got_ in there? Rocks?”

“Not me,” said Steve. The woman they'd fought in the base, however – _she_ seemed to have been made of something considerably more durable than mere flesh and bone.

“Let's see the shoulder, then,” Megan sighed. “Toby, are you gonna stand there, or are you gonna go see if he's still in the bathroom?”

Strong got up with a sigh and looked at Sam. “Help me with this?” he asked for a second time.

“Sure.” Sam got up to go with him.

They returned five minutes later as Megan wound bandages around Steve's midsection. Sam was leading a man in a camouflage hunting jacket and hiking boots, who was walking in a shuffle with his ankles tied together. His hands were also tied, behind his back. Strong was following, carrying a mason jar with a black and yellow spider nearly an inch long.

“That's some spider,” said Megan.

“Told you.” Strong held up the jar with a grin.

They sat the man down in an armchair across from the sofa, and Steve got his first look at the prisoner's face. The man looked as if he were in his late twenties or early thirties. His hair was long almost to his shoulders, he had a bushy brown mustache, and one of the arms tied behind his back was actually a hard plastic prosthesis. His face, however, was unmistakeable. He was yet another Finster.

“I knew it!” Sam declared. “I _knew_ I wasn't being paranoid! More clones!”

“Do you know this guy?” Steve asked Megan and Strong.

“No,” said Megan, “but we know who he was cloned from.”

Strong tossed a wallet onto the table. “His ID says _Luke Finster_ ,” he said with a scowl. “It's Fenstermacher.”

“He got here about fifteen minutes after we did,” Megan added.

Sam nodded. “I _knew_ it,” he repeated, looking at Steve. Steve nodded – how dumb had it been, when they _knew_ there were clones running around, to believe the twin story? “How deep does this rabbit hole _go_?” Sam wanted to know.

“I think he's been living here, guarding the emergency exit,” Strong explained. “He must have been somewhere and he got back and saw my cab outside, so he shot out the tires before he came in. We heard that, and that gave us enough warning to surprise him. Megan kicked him in the face a few times and we figured we'd give him to you to question when you were finished in the base.”

“But then he got a text message from somebody called _MamboNumbah5_.” Megan pointed to an iPhone lying on the coffee table. “It said you guys had arrived and he was going to 'feed you to 23'. So we tied him up and Toby killed the power to keep everybody busy while I went to find you.”

“How did you know where to look?” Natasha asked.

“We figured if this was the exit he was guarding, there had to be something at the bottom that needed it,” Megan said.

“There was, two weeks ago,” Finster spoke up, “but it's gone now. We packed up what was in the vault and moved on – Randy and I were just waiting for orders to take Kinney and twenty-three and follow. Rudy may have sabotaged the _Albatross_ , but we found another boat and it's already on its way. If you wanted to stop us, _Captain_ ,” he sneered at Steve, “you're too late.”

“Is this the part with the Bond Villain Speech?” asked Strong. “You know, where you tell us all your plans so we can thwart them in the nick of time?”

“Go fuck yourself,” said Finster.

Strong sat down on the arm of Finster's chair. “How about this?” he asked, holding up the mason jar. “You tell Captain America what's going on and why you guys are killing us, or I put this spider down your neck.”

Compared to what Steve, Sam, and Natasha had done to get information out of Sitwell, or even to pointing a gun at Megan to convince her to come with them, a spider down the neck seemed like an awfully weak threat. Finster, however, paled visibly.

“ _You'd_ have to touch it first,” he said.

Strong unscrewed the lid of the jar. “Do you have any idea how many bugs I've handled?” he asked. “Stan wouldn't let me squish them. _Catch them and put them outside_ , he'd said. _They didn't do anything to you_.” He tipped the spider out into his palm without even a flinch.

“What's the new ship called?” asked Sam.

Finster's eyes were fixed on the arachnid. “The _Santo_ _Eustáquio_ ,” he said.

“What's her cargo?” asked Steve.

Strong turned his hand over so that the spider could crawl onto the back. Its bulbous striped abdomen was nearly the size of a nickle.

“Blood and marrow.” Finster glanced at Steve. “ _Your_ blood and marrow. Enough to make  _millions_ of clones, and since we got the DNA from the ones who already survived to adulthood, we know it's got a minimum of copy errors.” He sat up a bit straighter, as if to take control of the situation. “Now that we've cracked the serum, we can make an  _army_ of Captain America!”

“That doesn't work,” Megan scoffed. “You can't grow people to order like that. We're living proof.”

“No, _you're_ a failed experiment,” said Finster contemptuously. “SHIELD was too damn nice to you. We can do better now. Nowadays we can accelerate their growth so they'll be adults in a few weeks instead of twenty years. We can feed education and orders directly into their brains via implanted microchips, so they can't wander off and watch TV and decide there's things they'd rather be doing.” He glared at Megan. “We'll have the super-army Schmidt dreamed of seventy years ago. And you know what?” Finster turned to Steve. “We're gonna save one of the best ones to take _your_ place. What better face for the new government than _President Rogers_. We dug the shield up for him and everything!”

Steve got to his feet. Finster shrank back, but then sat up straight again – he was not nearly as afraid of Steve as he was of spiders. “You gonna kill me?” he asked. “Go ahead. I'm not vital. Once I lost my arm I was no good as a host anyway.”

“A  _ host _ ?” asked Sam.

“A host?” Steve echoed, taken aback. That seemed to have come out of nowhere. “A host for what?”

Finster didn't answer. For the first time, he looked worried, like he might have let slip information that _could_ hurt them, clone army or no.

“A host for _what_?” Sam repeated. He grabbed Finster's face and forced his mouth open, then looked at Toby. Toby nodded, and dangled the spider by one leg.

Finster squirmed in terror. “For Fenstermacher!” he wailed. “For his brain!”

Natasha had thus far been silent, which seemed to be how she coped with pain. Now, however, she sat up. “Steve,” she said, “those HYDRA people you were after in the Black Forest. What were they working on?”

“Organ transplants, we think,” said Steve. The things they'd found there had haunted him for months. Hundreds of people must have died in that base.

“The younger Fenstermacher worked on the idea of growing organs for transplant,” Natasha said. “He thought he could prolong human life indefinitely by creating new organs to replace aging ones.” She looked sideways at Finster. “I guess he decided it was simpler to grow whole new bodies.”

Steve felt thick, hot anger bubble up like lava inside of him. Wolfgang Fenstermacher was the man who'd escaped from him in 1943, only to immigrate to the US and  _ clone himself _ so he could transplant his brain into a younger body and pose as his own son? Fine. Since he'd awoken in 2012 Steve had faced an army of aliens led by a god and an artificial intelligence on tape cassette, among other things. He could handle a brain building itself new bodies. The part he was  _ furious _ about was something else entirely.

“Are you trying to tell me,” he demanded, “that none of this would be happening if the army hadn't decided to take a day off and  _ put a crown on my tooth _ ?”

Finster said nothing.

Steve looked around the room for something that wasn't too heavy and wasn't nailed down – there was a footstool by the coffee table. He picked it up with his good arm and flung it through the window. The smash of the glass didn't really  _ help _ the rage boiling inside him, but it was a satisfying sound, and better than breaking Finster's head.

After a moment, the red cleared from Steve's vision, and he realized the others were staring at him. Natasha was leaning away, Megan had her arms up as if in self-defense, and Toby had closed his hands around the spider and was holding it protectively against his chest.

“I'm okay,” Steve said. “I'm okay.” They couldn't stop now. Natasha needed medical attention. So did he. And then... “we have to catch up with that boat.”


	7. Trust No-One

Strong's cab was still parked in front of the cabin, but Luke Finster had shot out both back tires, and there was only one spare. They could not get back down the mountain that way.

“Do you have a car?” Sam asked Finster.

“If I need something, Randy brings it up,” Finster said. “Having a car parked up here would attract attention.”

That left them on foot. Months of wandering around Europe during the War had given Steve a feel for distances and walking times. It had been about a thirty-minute drive from Agent Fa's place to the base parking lot. On foot, in the cold, with two injured party members, a prisoner who couldn't be allowed to run away, and a birdcage and luggage to carry, the trip back would be at least six hours, probably longer. It would be dark by the time they arrived, and while it was not snowing at that moment, the silvery sky looked as if it could start again at any moment. They'd better get started.

“Who was that woman?” Steve asked Finster, as they trudged back down the cold, muddy mountain road. They'd untied Finster's legs so that he could walk faster than a shuffle, but his hands remained tied behind his back, and Steve was watching carefully so that he couldn't wiggle out by shedding his prosthesis. Strong had taped the mason jar with the spider to his suitcase, so it would be within easy reach.

“JLH-Χ23,” Finster said – _jay ell aitch chi twenty-three_.

“Does she have a  _ name _ ?” Steve asked. Had SGR-Λ14?

Finster scowled. “Dr. Kinney called her Laura.”

“If you want a clone army, why not an army of  _ her _ ?” Sam asked.

“She's a mutant,” Finster said.

He seemed to think that was all the explanation needed, and maybe it was. HYDRA had its roots in Nazi Germany, after all – they had a rather narrow definition of humanity, and mutants probably didn't count. Strong, however, offered an expansion.

“Mutants don't clone well,” he said. “The x-gene doesn't want to copy. The ones we grew up with never got their powers, or only got weak ones.”

“Rick taught himself magic tricks so he could pretend,” said Megan. “He got so good at it he nearly fooled Fenstermacher.”

“Even Twenty-Three didn't turn out _perfect_ ,” Finster said. “The sample was already degraded when Dad got it. We had to fill in the holes as best we could. The donor was actually male, but we lost the y-chromosome. Sutter was worried it would ruin the whole thing.”

A few steps ahead, Sam had taken Megan's suitcase so that she could carry Goji's cage in both hands. She was holding it close to her, worried that the cold air would harm her bird – and Goji had, indeed, fluffed herself up into a warm little ball of green feathers.

“You two don't look like shitty secret agents to me,” Sam said. “You managed to capture a guy for interrogation without hurting him, and shut down the power to an air force base. That's nothing to sneeze at.”

“I worked there,” Strong reminded him. “I know the systems inside and out.” It was a strange thing to hear – somebody deflecting a compliment in _Stark's voice_.

“And we just managed to surprise him _slightly_ more than he surprised us,” Megan added modestly. “Otherwise, we'd probably both have been shot.”

Natasha raised her head. “Somebody's coming,” she said.

Steve stopped walking and listened. Sure enough, he could hear the sound of a vehicle engine. His first reaction was that they couldn't let anybody find them, not when he and Natasha were already hurt. “Everyone hide,” he ordered.

Hiding, however, was easier said than done. Steve and Natasha couldn't just roll into a ditch – they had to be gentle on their injuries. Sam found a space for them behind a patch of cinquefoils at the side of the road, and they crouched there nervously, hoping the unseen driver would be in too much of a hurry to notice their footprints or the tracks of Megan's wheeled suitcase. The clones themselves were even worse off – Megan had Goji's cage, and Strong had his own suitcase _and_ Finster to take care of. They barely managed to get off the road and under the drooping branches of a big spruce tree before the vehicle appeared on the road up ahead: a dark blue Air Force jeep.

To Steve's surprise, Sam immediately scrambled back out on the road again. “Hey!” he called, waving his arms as he stepped into the jeep's path. “Help! We've got people hurt over here!”

Steve stood up, intending to grab him and ask him what he thought he was doing, but then he stopped himself. The Air Force were supposed to be the good guys here. That was why they'd come here in the first place, to find help – the only reason they'd failed was because Randy Finster had waylaid them before they could ask. Just because there was _one_ HYDRA operative in the base didn't mean the whole place was compromised?

Did it?

The jeep pulled over and the door opened, revealing the black sergeant from the base parking lot. He leaned out to look at the group with a puzzled expression. “How did you guys get way out here?” he asked.

“It's sort of the proverbial long story,” said Sam, returning to the bushes to help Steve and Natasha up. Across the road, the clones peeked out of their own hiding place, not sure what they were looking at.

The sergeant nodded and turned around to unlock the back doors. “Hop in,” he said, and grabbed the radio to tell the base he was turning around. “I've found the superheroes, and three civilians,” he explained. “Cap and Widow are wounded, pretty serious. I'm bringing them back to the infirmary.”

The radio crackled. _Okay_ , a woman's voice replied. _We'll send somebody else up to check out the cabin. Friedman out_.

Friedman, Steve thought – that was a German name. HYDRA's interest in racial purity meant the sergeant probably wasn't involved, himself. Most likely he'd turned them over to Finster in the expectation that his subordinate would do as he was told, but the woman he'd just reported back to might be an operative. Or had the organization's interests changed enough in the past seventy years that the sergeant, too, might be directly involved?

“You're looking for the source of the power hack?” asked Strong, as he and Megan forced Luke Finster into the back of the jeep. “Don't bother about the cabin. We just came from there. This guy's been squatting.”

“Who's he?” asked the sergeant, turning in his seat to watch. Steve watched his face carefully, but there was no sign that he recognized Finster.

“A HYDRA agent,” said Steve. “Airman Finster was another one.” He watched for the reaction.

“I see.” The sergeant swallowed. “This time,” he decided firmly, “I'll take you to General Cordero _myself_.”

The ride back tot he base was certainly shorter, warmer, and less painful than the walk to Agent Fa's would have been, and Steve was glad of that – but he felt more and more nervous the closer they got. How did they _really_ know they could trust the man in the driver's seat? When they got there, how would they know if they could trust the general? Maybe he'd decided to sacrifice the research base in order to maintain his own position in the armed forces. How did they know if they could trust _anybody_?

“Whatcha got there?” asked the sergeant, taking an interest in the jar Strong was still holding.

“HYDRA's worst nightmare.” Strong held it up for the man to see in the mirror.

The sergeant's eyes lit up as he realized what it was. “That's an  _ Argiope aurantia _ !” he exclaimed. “I've never seen one that big before.” He turned his eyes back to the narrow mountain road, but he was still grinning. “Can I have her? Unless you want to keep her.”

“No, she's yours,” Toby said. “She was living in the window of the cabin.”

“Sweet!” the sergeant held out a hand to take the jar.

“What's your name, Sergeant?” asked Sam.

“Marcus Pepper, Sir,” the man replied.

Natasha laughed, although she cut herself off quickly when it shook her injured shoulder. “You mean you're  _ actually _ Sergeant Pepper?” she asked.

The man grinned. “It gets better. My sister's an orthodontist. She's  _ Doctor _ Pepper!”

Steve relaxed a little. It didn't seem likely that a man would joke around with them one moment and try to kill them the next. Although... Natasha could probably do it. Who was to say someone else could not?

When they arrived back in the base parking lot, Airman First Class Louise Banks waved them through the gate at once, and an ambulance and staff medics were there to escort them to the infirmary – the active base infirmary this time, not the abandoned secret one. There, the doctors put Natasha's shoulder back into its socket and sewed up Steve's collection of slashes and stabs, while Sam and the clones explained to the brass what had happened. As far as Steve could tell, everybody seemed to take the situation seriously enough. Luke Finster was taken away to be locked up and questioned, while a group of men in heavy combat gear were sent down to the empty facility to look for JLH-Χ23 and lightly-armed troops searched the base and surrounding mountainside for Randy.

No trace was found of either individual, or of the vault Luke Finster had mentioned.

General Cordero himself delivered this disappointing news to Steve. He was quite a tall man but somewhat overweight, with steel-gray hair and a pair of rimless eyeglasses perched askew on his snub nose. He was uncomfortable and embarrassed, almost afraid to look Steve in the eye, as if he were speaking to a disapproving teacher rather than a fellow soldier.

“I can't tell you how sorry I am, Captain Rogers,” he said. “I never imagined anything like this could happen at my base, especially to a national hero! Please accept my deepest and most sincere apologies, and my profound thanks.” He reached to take Steve's hand between both of his. “After HYDRA's files leaked, the FBI notified me that I'd been on the organization's hit list. So thank you, both personally and on behalf of my family, Captain Rogers, for saving my life.”

“You're welcome,” Steve replied – but however much he might have wanted to believe Cordero was sincere, he found he just  _ couldn't _ . He'd claimed he'd closed down the HYDRA base, but he'd never found wherever they'd been keeping Χ23. Randy Finster had clearly been posted there for some time, and if anyone were the wiser they were keeping their mouths shut. His thanks could easily be nothing but an attempt to put Steve at ease, like Finster had done with his grief for his dead 'twin'.

“I'll inform the Joint Chiefs of the situation at once,” the general went on, and Steve's heard jumped into his throat.

“No,” he said, “you can't do that.” Natasha's leaked information had led to the arrests of several high-up military officials and politicians, but who knew how many more names were in the part yet to be decrypted?

“I... can't?” Cordero frowned. Clearly this idea had never even occurred to him.

“We don't know how high up this conspiracy goes, or where the remaining HYDRA leaders are,” Steve said. “They might still have spies in the country. Until we've found them  all , we can't trust anybody, not even the Joint Chiefs.” And even if they did find them all, how would they  _ know _ ?

Cordero went pale. “What you've described is a serious threat to National Security!” he protested. “Keeping it from the President and the Joint Chiefs would be an act of treason!” 

Steve looked at his friends, hoping to find support, but there wasn't much. Sam and Natasha shared a worried glance, but then kept their faces carefully neutral. Megan was sitting on the floor next to Goji's cage, feeding the bird pieces of an apple somebody had given her. She didn't look at Steve. Strong was playing with a keychain, winding the keys off it and putting them back on over and over again.

“Besides,” Cordero went on. “The Argentine government...”

“Could easily be in HYDRA's pocket,” Steve interrupted.

“I have to agreed there,” Natasha spoke up. “A lot of the ratlines led to South America. Eichmann and Mengele both lived in Argentina for years. The Congress could be full of operatives and sympathizers.”

Cordero shook his head. “I  _ must _ tell my superiors,” he repeated, “but I'll pass on your concerns.” He reached up to dig in one ear with his little finger. “If you don't want the military involved, though, what  _ are _ you planning to do? You can't think you're going to take on HYDRA with just the five of you!” He looked horrified by the very thought. “You said they were creating an army! An army of  _ your equals _ . We won't a war with just  _ one _ of you!”

That made Steve bristle. “No, we wont a war with a lot of good men and women,” he said grimly. “My squad and I did most of our work outside the system even then, and that's still how I work best.” He looked at the others again. Natasha had a concerned frown on her face. Sam caught Steve's eye and mouthed the words,  _ what are you doing? _

“There's got to be  _ something _ I can offer you,” Cordero insisted. “I can't give you men – that would be considered an invasion of Argentina. I can give you transportation, though. If you need to get to Buenos Aires ahead of the  _ Santo  _ _ Eustáquio _ , I can charter a plane for you.”

A plane could be sabotaged. A pilot could take them anywhere and strand them with no way to return. Even if General Cordero himself were one of the good guys, they couldn't afford to accept. “Thanks, but no thanks,” Steve said. “We'll figure something out.”

“Can we at least offer you dinner?” the General said, almost pleading now.

Dinner could be drugged or even poisoned. “We have plans,” said Steve. They would go back to Agent Fa's, he decided. She couldn't hurt them – she had an emotional stake in this.

Cordero tried one last time: “isn't there  _ any _ help I can offer you?”

Before Steve could reply, Natasha spoke up. “Can we take another look in that basement?” she asked. “There was something I wanted to see, but we got sidetracked.”

“Of course, of course!” said Cordero. “I'll get some men to go down there with you. Nobody is  _ ever _ allowed on those levels again in groups of less than a dozen! Nobody!”

Steve sort of wanted to refuse even  _ that _ , but decided against it – Natasha and Sam were already staring at him as if they thought he were crazy, and he didn't want to get into an argument right now. The general assigned some twenty men and women in scarlet berets to accompany the group back down to the laboratory level. This time, however, they saw nobody. The room was still in a shambles from Steve and Natasha's fight with JLH-Χ23, especially now that all the objects that had stuck to the MRI magnet had fallen off it to land in twisted heaps on the floor. The machine itself was badly damaged, dented and crumpled, and somebody had sprayed it down with firefighting foam. Nothing seemed to be missing, however, except for Χ23 herself.

_ Dr. Kinney called her Laura _ . Was 'Laura' a person with opinions and interests, like the other clones, or had she been artificially aged and educated like Luke Finster had described, given no opportunity to be anything but a killing machine? Or was she something in between the two, a person who'd been tortured and brainwashed and slowly taken apart, like Bucky? Steve was positive he'd managed to get through to Bucky in the end, or at least to whatever was left of him. Maybe it would also be possible to get through to Laura. Maybe she could shake off her conditioning and have some semblance of a normal life, the way Steve hoped Bucky still could.

Sam paused to pick something up. “Here's the ring,” he observed.

“Is that my camera ring?” Strong's eyes opened in horror as he saw what was left of his creation. “It's crushed!” he complained. “That took me  _ ages _ . The lenses had to be perfect – I'm not sure I could ever get them right again! Give me that.” He plucked the ring from Sam's fingers and wrapped a tissue around it to keep it safe in his pocket. “I'll have to see what I can save.”

“He never throws a camera away,” said Megan. “He's got all these broken ones he bought on eBay that just sit around.”

“They're good for parts,” Strong huffed.

“Here we go!” Natasha announced, fishing something out of the mess. She'd found the set of slim leather notebooks that had fallen out of the metal box when it broke open. Now she spread them out on the nearest horizontal surface, which happened to be the bed of the MRI machine.

Steve came closer for a look, and felt a chill as he recognized the handwriting. “These are some of Dr. Erskine's notes,” he realized – exactly as he remembered seeing when he'd once glanced over the man's shoulder. They were in a mixture of English and German, and accompanied with complex diagrams: images of bulbous molecules, curious shapes clinging to the spiral of DNA and other, unidentifiable structures, overlaid with lists of chemical formulas Steve couldn't begin to guess the meanings of. He remembered seeing Dr. Erskine bent over this very book the night before they tested the serum – scribbling, consulting other notes and charts, and then sighing as he took an x-acto knife out of his pocket.

“There are pages missing,” said Natasha. She ran a finger down where several had been cut out of the book, closely enough to fray the binding stitches. “I guess they took the important part with them.”

“No, this isn't recent,” said Steve. “Dr. Erskine cut them out himself.” Steve had been absorbed in some reading of his own that evening, trying to keep his mind off what was coming the next day, and he hadn't thought to wonder  _ why _ Erskine was cutting up his book. Had there been something on this page that nobody was meant to know?

Natasha frowned at the notebook and was silent for a moment, lost in thought. “Erskine said your DNA would be the key to the serum,” she said slowly. “What if he didn't mean that it would  _ change _ your genetic code? What if the serum has to be tailored to each person it's used on, and what was on these pages was how to do that? So the formula the old SSR managed to reconstruct never worked properly on any of their test subjects, because it was meant for  _ you _ .”

“That would explain why they want to use clones now, instead of their own people,” Sam said.

“And it just never occurred to anybody to try it on  _ my _ clones?” asked Steve. That seemed like a terrible oversight on SHIELD's part – surely  _ somebody _ would have thought of it. Then he remembered SGR-Λ14, and wondered if they  _ had _ . Had that kid really died of pneumonia, or had they tried to make him a super-soldier at the age of six, only to find that his poor little body couldn't take it? He looked at Strong and Megan, hoping one of them knew something about it.

But both shook their heads. “I don't think anybody tried that,” Megan said. “Yours... they were pretty sick a lot of the time. Some of them couldn't even get their vaccinations because their immune systems were so weak.”

Steve shut his eyes. If fourteen of his clones had made it to the age of twenty, how many more must have died as children? His first estimate of seven hundred embryos had probably been far too low. They must have started with  _ thousands _ .

“Unless they tried it and never told us,” Strong said. “We didn't know that Fenstermacher cloned  _ himself _ , and we didn't know about the woman who attacked you. Maybe some of the ones we thought died, they actually took away for...” he swallowed hard. “To run more tests.”

Megan took his hand and squeezed it.

“Maybe,” Strong went on. “Maybe... oh,  _ shit _ , maybe they let  _ us _ fail on purpose. Maybe we were just around so SHIELD would think the whole thing was a flop and keep everybody's eyes off what they were  _ really _ doing.”

Creating people and then convincing them they were failures, just as a distraction. Sadly, that didn't sound like it would be beyond HYDRA. It barely sounded like it would be beyond SHIELD. Strong sounded like the idea made him feel sick.

“Is there anything else you wanted to see down here?” General Cordero asked. He was fidgety, eager to return to the part of the base he felt in control of.

Natasha closed the book. “Just that. It's not even all that important after what Finster told us. It doesn't matter  _ why _ they're doing this the way they're doing it – what matters is  _ what _ they're doing.”

“Yes, of course.” Cordero nodded. “We're going to empty this place out  _ properly _ now. We should have just turned off the pumps and let it flood after we rounded them up last year. Hell, we should probably have just filled it all in with concrete.” His face and voice were pinched with regret. Steve knew that feeling all too well. The crystal clarity of hindsight, when it was perfectly obvious what you  _ should _ have done but far too late to do it.

The scarlet berets escorted them out of the room, and the general personally locked the door behind them. On the way out, something else caught Natasha's eye, and she paused to pick up a tiny knot of silvery metal that had fallen amidst the wreckage of the filing cabinets.

“What's that?” Steve asked her softly as they headed back to the elevator.

She opened her hand to show him the twisted remains of her necklace.

“We've all got things we can't leave behind,” she murmured.

* * *

Outside, the sun was setting and snow had begun to fall again, in big, wet flakes that clumped in the air and melted upon contact with glass or concrete. The entire group – Steve, Natasha, Sam, Strong, and Megan – squeezed back into the rental car, luggage and all. Cordero offered to provide them with an armed escort back to the city, but Steve refused once again. He didn't want to draw any more attention to themselves, or to Agent Fa, than they already had.

Sam did the driving. Steve and Natasha's injuries prevented them from taking the wheel, and the two clones were quiet and upset. They'd been used to the idea that they were failed experiments – now they had to deal with the thought that they might have been created as a deliberate waste of resources, without any real purpose at all. They sat in the back seat on either side of Natasha, Strong staring silently out the window at the swirling snow while Megan gently stroked Goji's back and tried to find comfort in the bird's soft chattering.

“So what's your plan?” Sam asked.

“I'm working on it,” Steve replied. He knew they had to get to Buenos Aires and meet the  _ Santo Eustáquio _ before HYDRA did, but he hadn't yet figured out how they were going to do that.

Sam didn't reply right away. He waited until there was a red light to stop at, and then he let go of the steering wheel and turned to stare at Steve. “What do you mean, you're working on it?” he asked. “The general offered to help us get there and you turned him down! I assumed you had some kind of better idea!”

“We couldn't accept,” Steve said. “Even if Cordero's okay, we don't know who else is in that base. He gives us a plane, somebody plants a bomb on it, and we all end up on the bottom of the Atlantic!” Sam and Natasha had been  _ with _ him for the takedown in Washington. Surely they, of all people, knew that HYDRA could be anywhere. “I don't have a plan yet. I'm making this up as I go.”

Sam took that in. The light turned green again, and the vehicle behind them had to honk before he noticed. “So what's our next move, then?” he asked, eyes back on the road as he pressed the gas pedal. “I don't know about you, but I don't think we can do  _ another _ night on the road. Not with you two hurt. We need to find a place to sleep.”

“We can go back to Agent Fa's,” said Strong hopefully.

“That's what I was thinking,” Steve agreed. It probably wasn't a great idea, but under the circumstances it would have to do. “We'll leave first thing in the morning. It'll minimize our chances of being seen, and with less traffic we'll be able to tell if we're being followed.” That gave him maybe ten hours to figure out how they were getting to Argentina – among other things. “And you two still have to leave the country,” he remembered, meaning Megan and Strong.

In the back seat, the two clones looked at each other, then Megan sat up a bit. “I think we want to come with you,” she said.

Steve turned to look over his shoulder again, too quickly this time – the motion pulled painfully on his stitches. “What?” he asked. “Why?”

“Because we can help,” Strong said.

“The others are... they're our  _ family _ ,” said Megan. “If they're in danger and we can help do something about it, we can't just run away.”

“Besides, you just said we have to get out of the country,” Strong added. “Argentina is  _ definitely _ out of the country!”

“We also said Argentina is probably full of HYDRA,” Natasha reminded him.

“Buenos Aires is less than twenty miles from the border with Uruguay,” said Strong. “We can go there, or continue on to Brazil.”

“Please?” Megan asked.

Steve wanted to say that there _had_ to be something better or safer they could do, but when he tought about it, he realized that there wasn't. They had nowhere to go, and as Megan had observed, that was partially his fault. Their lives had been given to them by SHIELD, but there was no more SHIELD anymore, and now – perhaps just as they were starting to make lives for themselves in the real world – Steve had ruined everything for them again by putting thm in a position to learn what they really were. He couldn't help feeling he _owed_ them something, and yet...

“We can't go all the way to South America carting your bird and your cameras,” he said. No matter how attached Megan and Strong might be to them, those were dead weight.

Megan clutched Goji's cage as if hugging it, but Strong just nodded slowly. “Agent Fa will look after them for us,” he said.

Tears rose in Megan's eyes. “But...” she began.

“Her last dog lived to be twenty-four,” Strong promised. “She'll take good care of your budgie, Meg.”

Steve watched in the rearview mirror. If anything would make Megan stay behind, he thought, it would be having to leave Goji – but she just nodded silently. “Okay,” she murmured.

* * *

For the second time in twenty-four hours, they pulled up outside Agent Fa's condo unit, and Megan and Stong went to ring the doorbell. This time, when there was no answer after a short wait, they held a hurried discussion and then Strong made a phone call. Steve, watching from the car, frowned. Weren't they worried about somebody tracing the call? Then again, HYDRA certainly already knew they were in town. Luke Finster was in Air Force custody, but Randy had doubtless passed on he message by now. If they needed to make a phone call, they might as well use their own.

The call was short, and the clones returned to the car. “I just remember it's Saturday,” Strong explained. “Saturday evenings she plays bridge at the church. She's on her way. It'll be five or ten minuutes.” They climbed back into the car to wait in the warm.

Eight minutes later, Agent Fa's olive-green SUV pulled into the unit's driveway. “What on earth happened to you all?” she asked as they got out of the car to meet her. Her eyebrows rose as she took in Steve's torn and bloodstained clothes.

“It's been a long day,” said Strong.

“Evidently!” Agent Fa went to unlock the front doors. “I wasn't expecting company for dinner, but I'll see what I can put together. Come in and warm up.”

While they washed up and changed, Agent Fa threw together some kind of soup with green onions and cabbage. She dished out a vegetables-only serving for Megan before adding some chicken for everybody else, and warmed up a tupperware full of dumplings she'd had in her freezer. Her unconditional hospitality  _should_ have been reassuring, but Steve was still ill and ease. HYDRA surely knew where Agent Fa lived – if she'd been Toby's surrogate mother then she'd actually  _worked_ for them, even if it were unintentional. Her house would doubtless be among the first places they'd look when they came to find party. Maybe Agent Fa was even HYDRA herself? Or... no, Steve decided, even if she was, she still had an obviously maternal relationship with Strong, and if she didn't consider herself Megan's  _mother_ she was at least an  _aunt_ or something. She had too much personally invested in the fate of the clones to betray them. Still, her home was less a hiding place than it was a sitting target.

They would leave while it was still dark, he decided. Maybe as early as three or four in the morning. That would be safest.

 

 


	8. On the Move Again

“Now,” Agent Fa said, once everybody'd had some food, “are you going to tell me what happened, or is that a state secret?” Her tone was motherly and businesslike, but there was no sarcasm in the question – she was completely in earnest, and Steve didn't doubt that if he said the events of the day were classified, she would not press them. He probably ought to tell the story himself, but he hesitated, still not sure if he could trust her.

Strong and Megan, however, trusted her implicitly. “Well,” Strong said, “remember I told you I stopped in Dallas to see Megan?”

“Somebody got a picture of us there,” Megan said, “and put it on facebook.”

“It wasn't a picture of just them,” Natasha said. “They were in the background, but we could see Toby's face.”

“We needed to find him,” Sam said, “because at the time our theory was that he was involved in this.”

“Wait, wait.” Agent Fa held up her hands. “One at a time. Who wants to start at the _beginning_?” She looked at Steve, the only one who hadn't yet spoken.

“The beginning,” Steve sighed. “I guess the beginning is me getting hit in the face in Germany, seventy-two years ago.”

It took half an hour to tell the whole story, from Fenstermacher's original escape into the Black Forest, to the deaths of the clones, to meeting Strong and then Megan, and finishing with the events at the base that day. Agent Fa listened with her chin in her hands, her face showing worry, distress, and then finally astonishment when Steve explained why they'd turned down help from the Air Force.

“You can't think General Cordero is HYDRA!” she exclaimed.

“Probably not,” Steve assured her, “but we can't take the risk. We know there was at least _one_ HYDRA operative in the base, and where there's one, there could be more.” Luke Finster had implied it was just the two of them, Dr. Kinney, and JLH-Χ23, but the Finsters were the _last_ people whose word Steve was going to take for anything. “We'll figure something out.” He still had no idea what _something_ was going to be, but hopefully he just needed time to think about it.

“If you can find a plane, I'm willing to fly it for you,” Agent Fa said. “Or Toby – he's got a pilot's license.”

“It may have lapsed,” Strong said. “I can't exactly just stop at the CAA and renew it.”

“Thank you, Agent Fa,” Natasha said, “but that's not the problem. I can fly a plane.”

“So can I,” Sam agreed, “although it's been a few years.”

“And me, if it comes to it,” Steve said. They had plenty of challenges ahead of them, but finding a pilot was definitely not on that list.

“Steve only _thinks_ he can fly,” Natasha said drolly. “That's why he jumps off things without a parachute.”

“Does he?” Sam grinned. “I'd been meaning to ask you if that was a habit.”

“He does it all the time,” Natasha said, giving Steve a teasing smirk. “Usually right after giving me lip. He kows if he doesn't jump I'll kick his ass.”

Steve shook his head, but he smiled back. People didn't think of the Black Widow as the person to lighten the mood when everybody else was grim-faced, but she was unexpectedly good at it. “Anyway,” he said, bringing the conversation back to its point, “I figure we'll sleep on it, and leave before it gets light tomorrow.”

Strong prodded Megan with his elbow and gestured towards Agent Fa.

Megan took a deep breath. “Agent Fa,” she said, “can you look after Goji for me, just for a while? When we're done with all this I'll either have you send her to me or I'll come back and get her, but I can't take her with me.”

“Of course I will, sweetheart,” Agent Fa promised. “You won't have to worry about a thing.”

* * *

After dinner, they had to figure out sleeping arrangements. Agent Fa insisted that since Steve and Natasha were injured, they should get the master bedroom. Strong volunteered to sleep on the living room sofa so that Agent Fa and Megan could share the guest room, and that just left Sam. He assured Agent Fa that he didn't care where he slept, so she inflated an air mattress for him at the foot of Steve and Natasha's bed.

Despite being tired and in pain, Steve lay awake in bed for hours, staring into the darkness and trying to plan. They had to head off the _Santo Eust_ _á_ _quio_ . Perhaps they could board it while still at sea, but how? Once they were on board, they'd have to destroy the cargo, and do so very thoroughly – Steve had watched enough television to know that it was possible to get DNA out of vanishingly tiny samples. Fire was too dangerous at sea. Maybe they could just dump the cargo container overboard. First, however, they had to _get_ there, and that brought him back to the question of transportation...

This was no good. If Steve couldn't stop _thinking_ , he would never get to sleep. If this had happened a year ago, he would have just got up and gone for a jog, but he couldn't do that now. It was snowing again, and anyway, alone at night even Captain America was relatively vulnerable. A trip downstairs for a glass of water would have to do.

He got up carefully, so as not to disturb Sam and Natasha, and shuffled to the top of the stairs. There, he realized he wasn't the only one awake – there was sound and light in the living room. When Steve went to look, he found Strong sitting on the sofa in a t-shirt and pajama pants, with a movie playing and the parts of his camera ring spread out on the coffee table. The tiny components had been put on loops of sticky tape so they couldn't roll away and get lost/

Steve stood in the doorway for a moment, watching silently. Pepper Potts had once told him that when Stark couldn't sleep, he sat up tinkering with his machines. This was the first time Steve had really seen anything of Stark in Strong, and it made him wonder if his own clones had any small habits in common with him. Had Stan or Evan doodled on any available paper while trying to think? Did Clive or Scott get disproportionately angry with people who talked during movies?

Strong glanced up and noticed Steve. “ _Zodiac_ ,” he said, gesturing to the TV.

“Never heard of it,” said Steve.

“It's okay,” Strong said with a shrug. “It's pretty close to what actually happened, as these things go, but what actually _happened_ doesn't always make for a satisfying _movie_. In a movie you want to see them catch the bad guy and save the girl and live happily ever after. This is just Jake Gyllenhaal becoming a paranoid recluse and losing everything he loves.”

That sounded depressing. “So why watch it?” asked Steve, sitting down in an armchair.

“I like crime stories,” Strong replied. “They reassure me that somewhere out there is a guy who's a bigger fuckup than I am.”

That sounded odd to Steve. He didn't know what Megan or any of his own clones had been doing at SHIELD, but he did know what Strong's job was. “Natasha said you were an 'optics technician' and you'd made stuff for her personally.” He gestured to the bits of the ring. “You've probably made stuff for _me_ , too, although we never met.” He could see why Fury wouldn't have wanted him making requests of Strong face-to-face, but it might not have been a bad thing to open this particular can of worms a few years earlier. “That doesn't sound like a 'fuckup' to me.”

“Yeah,” said Toby. “I also designed the targeting lasers for the Insight helicarriers. I wonder if they were planning on killing me with it.” He picked unhappily at a bit of dry skin on the side of his thumbnail, then stuck the digit in his mouth as a bead of blood welled up. “The software looked for DNA. I would have shown up in the computer as Stark. Maybe I was just an 'acceptable loss'.” He sighed. “The thing about my job is that it's _useful_ , but it's not what anybody _wanted_ . They wanted a guy to build them the next generation of smart weapons, but all the got was the next generation of smart cameras. It was... _not a satisfactory return on their investment_ ,” he said, clearly quoting somebody else.

 _I asked for an army_ , Phillips had said, _and all I got was you. You're not enough_. Yeah. Steve knew that feeling.

“You should sleep, you know,” Steve said. “We've got an early start tomorrow.” As if he were one to talk when he was sitting here awake, too.

“I know,” Toby said. “I will, eventually, I just have to wear myself down a little. I'm still pretty wired right now.” He paused, studying Steve's face. “I do know that Stark's an insomniac, too. I know what's in my genes and I try to be careful with things. That's why I don't drink.”

“Not at all?” Steve was surprised.

“Not a drop,” Toby promised. “Especially since you took out SHIELD. If I started now...” he sighed, staring dully at a point somewhere far beyond the television screen. “I'd probably never stop.”

“I hear you,” Steve said quietly. After he'd seen Bucky fall, he'd tried his hardest to drink himself into a stupor. If he'd managed it... well, everything after that would probably have gone very differently.

* * *

Steve eventually did go back to bed. He ultimately slept very little, but by morning, he had something approximating a plan.

“We can't fly commercially,” he said, as they threw their stuff into the back of the rental car. “We'd attract too much attention, and we won't have nearly enough control over where we go and when.”

Natasha could already tell what he was thinking. “Well, aren't we lucky? We know a guy who's got planes of his own and will let us do whatever we want with them,” she said with a smile.

Toby had caught on, too. “I don't like where this is going,” he said.

“You can wait in the car,” Steve promised. “We won't mention you.”

“It's probably better that way,” Natasha agreed. “I'm not sure Stark's ego could take learning he'd been duplicated.”

“Are you kidding? He'd never stop talking about how the world needed more of him to go around,” Steve said.

Megan was on the front step, saying goodbye to Goji. When she heard Stark's name, she looked up. “Does that mean we're going to New York?” she asked.

“Yes, it does,” Steve said. New York City had been Stark's primary residence since the Mandarin destroyed his home in Malibu. It was going to be a twenty-six hour drive, according to Google Maps. They'd looked up the _Santo Eust_ _á_ _quio_ and found she was a small container ship, capable of making the trip from Tampa to Buenos Aires in twelve to fourteen days if the weather were good and she made no stops. She'd left Tampa on Thursday the Fifth, two days earlier. They had some time to catch up, but less than Steve would have liked, especially if they had to find her at sea.

“Can we make a stop in Chicago?” asked Megan. “Would that be out of our way?”

Steve thought about it. It was further North than the route Google had given him and would probably add a couple of hours to the trip, but they were going to have to make at least one stopover anyway, and Chicago was a big enough city to disappear in easily, if they could only avoid cameras. “Why Chicago?” he asked.

“There's a restaurant there I like,” Megan replied, looking him right in the eye.

She'd said that before, when she'd wanted to stop in Wichita Falls so she could run off and check on Evan. Why was she saying it now? “A restaurant?” Steve asked. “Is there _actually_ a restaurant, or do you want to look for somebody again?”

Megan blinked a couple of times. “I want to look for somebody. I thought you'd be able to tell that.” She scowled. “I _told_ you I was a shitty secret agent. See what happens when I try to talk in code? Anyway, yeah, Lucinda lives in Chicago.”

“Who's Lucinda?” asked Steve, climbing into the car. It was his turn to sit in the back – Toby had offered to take the first shift driving, but Steve had vetoed that on the grounds that Toby, like himself, had been awake half the night. Megan, who seemed better-rested, had volunteered in his place.

“Lucinda Lei,” said Megan.

Toby provided additional details. “Her donor was Agent May. She was only thirty-odd when the cloning program started, but she was already kind of legendary as a fighter. They called her the Cavalry.”

That meant her clone was probably very different, Steve thought – and Sam seemed to have the same idea. “What does Lucinda do for a living?” he asked.

“She was a linguist with SHIELD,” said Megan. “Last time I heard she was working at the Wow Bao in downtown Chicago on day shifts and teaching ESL classes in the evening.”

“If she's not one of mine, she might actually be _alive_ ,” Steve grumbled, and then caught himself. “Oh. That was terrible... I'm sorry.” This situation must be wearing on Steve more than he thought. He didn't usually say things that hurtful, intentionally or no.

“It's fine,” said Megan, her voice clipped. She reached into Goji's cage to give the little bird one last head-scratch. “You be a good girl for Agent Fa, okay?” she said.

 _I love you, Mama_ , said Goji.

“I love you, too,” Megan said, leaning her forehead on the bars. “I'll come back for you, I promise.” She wiped her eyes on her sleeve as she turned away at last.

Agent Fa put Goji back inside and then gave Toby a hug. “Stay safe, you two,” she said. “I know it's a tall order.”

“We'll do our best,” Toby promised. “Thanks.”

“Don't even mention it,” Agent Fa said. “I knew _somebody_ had to love you kids or you'd never turn out right, and look at you now.” She affectionately patted Toby's cheek. “Go save the world, kiddo.”

Toby got in the front passenger seat of the car, and Megan the driver's. “So,” she said, with a pinch in her voice. “I guess we're taking...”

“Route 87 through Monument, up to Denver.” Toby handed her a map.

“All right.” Megan breathed deeply and turned the key in the ignition. “Tally-ho.”

* * *

They passed through Denver without stopping, and continued on to Lincoln, where they stopped for lunch at about two in the afternoon. It was long overdue by that point – they'd eaten a quick breakfast of coffee and scrambled eggs at Agent Fa's, but that wasn't enough to keep them going long, and everybody was hungry and complaining. Megan found them a vegetarian cafe on the first floor of a squat red brick building across the street from the University of Nebraska. The place was called _Maggie's_ , and whoever 'Maggie' was, Steve thought she was a much better cook than Joe Cucumber in Wichita Falls.

As they ate veggie wraps and soup in the cramped quarters of their parked car, Natasha took advantage of the university's wifi to do some more research. “Finster mentioned the names _Sutter_ and _Kinney_ ,” she said, scrolling through search results on her tablet. “Dr. Martin Sutter and Dr. Sarah Kinney were among the researchers arrested when General Cordero had the Cheyenne Mountain facility cleared out. Oddly enough,” she added with a note of heavy sarcasm, “both of them vanished from separate prisons just after Thanksgiving, and they're still missing.”

“Why didn't I hear about that?” Steve asked. “It should have been in the news.”

“Scientists haven't been the government's priority in rounding up HYDRA,” Natasha said with a scowl. “They want the politicians and military leaders first. The people _they_ consider dangerous.”

Steve nodded, and turned to Megan and Toby for more information. “What can _you_ tell us about Sutter and Kinney?” he asked.

Megan's mouth was full, so Toby spoke first. “We never saw much of Dr. Kinney,” he said. “She mostly worked with the mutants, trying to figure out what made the x-gene so slippery.”

“We remember Sutter, though,” said Megan.

“Sutter is an asshole,” Toby said flatly. “He was the one who didn't want us to have names. He said once you name something, you get attached to it, and they couldn't afford that when we had such a crummy survival rate. He used to watch us like he expected us to keel over at any moment.”

“Your caretakers named you anyway,” Steve observed. Luke Finster had said Dr. Kinney herself named JLH-Χ23 'Laura'. That made Steve feel a little better about SGR-Λ14. It seemed possible that the boy _had_ been given a name, and it had merely never been recorded in his file.

“ _Toby_ is shorter than _AES-Γ12_ ,” Toby observed.

“My theory,” Megan said, “is that Sutter doesn't like children, so somebody higher up SHIELD's food chain was punishing him for something by assigning him to a project that made him work with them all the time.”

“That doesn't make him any less of a jerk,” Toby said. “It's like on _Brooklyn-99_ : _cool motive, still murder_.”

Steve's jaw tensed – he knew the type. A _bully_. Bullies who went after children were the worst of the whole cruel lot. It wasn't just that kids couldn't defend themselves. All bullies chose victims who were somehow defenseless, but children sometimes didn't even know defense was _possible_. If this trip brought him face-to-face with Dr. Martin Sutter, Steve was going to have a few choice words for him. Or maybe just a fist to the nose.

After eating they got back on the road, and arrived in Chicago around eleven PM. That was far too late to do anything but find a place to sleep. As the least recognizable members of the group, Sam and Megan got them a room at a Motel Six next to the Villa Oaks Shopping Center on Route 38. There, they got all too brief a night's sleep before leaving at six he next morning so they could be at the Wow Bao Restaurant, where Lucinda worked, when it opened at seven.

The Wow Bao was in the Loop district, right under the El tracks on Van Buren Street, next to a Starbucks. A big sign above the door bore the restaurant's name with the subscript _hot Asian buns_ , and by now Steve was sufficiently familiar with the 21st century zeitgeist to immediately think of something other than food. He wondered if the association were intentional, or merely unfortunate.

Inside, the restaurant was decorated in warm colours, rosy woods, and smooth lines, which suggested Asia without invoking any particular culture. Steve didn't want to scare Lucinda the way he had the others, so he, Sam, and Natasha stayed back while Toby and Megan approached the counter. The employee who was starting the day's cooking was a thin, bearded Asian man in his early twenties. His nametag said _Brad_.

“Excuse me,” said Megan. “Hi. Can you tell me if Lucinda Lei is working today?”

“Lucinda?” Brad shook his head. “Sorry, Miss. She quit last week.”

The two clones clearly hadn't expected that. They looked at each other, then back at the employee. “Did she say why?” Megan asked.

“I think she said her cousin died,” Brad said. “Somebody died, and she had to go to China for the funeral without knowing when she'd be back. That was just about a week ago.” He rubbed his thin beard and thought for a moment. “Yeah. Tuesday.”

Tuesday had been the day the news in Tampa carried the story of the unidentified body in the bay. Maybe Lucinda had come across it somehow. Toby had mentioned that she'd identified Dave Rodman's body. Maybe she decided Stan was one dead clone too many, and fled.

“Thanks anyway,” said Megan.

“No problem,” Brad assured her. “Lucinda's popular this week! I don't remember anyone ever asking for her the whole time she worked here, but then she leaves and bam! Two in two days!”

Megan and Toby had been about to return to the group, but that made them both stop short. After another worried exchange of looks, they turned back, and Toby asked, “who was the other one?”

“Some guy phoned yesterday afternoon,” said Brad. “He told me he'd been arrested and he needed Lucinda to come bail him out. When I said she'd left, he thought I was making an excuse so she could avoid him and he called me a bunch of names, so I hung up.” He had clearly been unimpressed by the caller.

The clones didn't look impressed, either. “Great,” groaned Toby. “Just what we needed.”

“At least we know where he is if we want him,” Megan sighed. She thanked the employee again, and they all returned to the car.

“Who was he talking about?” Steve asked. The clones obviously knew who the caller had been.

“Roger,” said Megan.

“Roger,” Toby agreed. He'd mentioned being worried about a 'Roger' the day Steve had met him. He wasn't worried now, only utterly disgusted.

“Roger Stevens?” asked Natasha.

“You know him?” said Sam, although he didn't sound surprised. Sam seemed to figure that Natasha knew everybody and everything.

She shook her head. “That was just a guess. They must've been running out of names.”

“Do you have any idea what he would have been arrested for?” Steve asked. If Roger were one of _his_ clones, he supposed the man could have been in a fight – Steve himself had done more than enough of that before he'd had the serum. Or maybe things had gotten rowdy at a protest march. Those sometimes led to arrests. Or Steve also got the idea that some of the clones hadn't known nearly enough about the outside world before they were suddenly thrown into it. Maybe Roger had just made the wrong friends.

“God fucking knows,” said Megan, “but we can't just leave him there.”

“Oh, yes, we can,” said Toby. “I _told_ him, way back in October, that I was never bailing his ass out again, and I meant it. Lucinda's not here, so let's just go.”

His callousness startled Steve. “We can't do that,” he protested. “What if HYDRA comes looking for him while he's locked up?” The poor man would have no escape, and the disappearances of Sutter and Kinney had shown that HYDRA could whisk people out of prisons undetected if they chose.

Besides, this was the first time Steve had heard for certain of a _living_ clone. Maybe this was the chance he'd been denied with Evan Grant, to _meet_ one of these people who were, and yet were not, himself.

Toby folded his arms. “I'm not doing it,” he declared.

“Don't be a child,” said Megan. “Captain Rogers is right, we can't leave him.”

“We can't take him _with_ us!” Toby complained.

“Then we'll put him on a boat to Canada,” said Megan firmly. “That's probably where Lucinda went, anyway.”

“So we'll all be accessories to unlawful flight,” Toby said. “No, thank you!”

“I'll take responsibility,” Steve promised. He'd add it to his list of things he would just have to figure out later. “I'm not leaving him to end up like the others.”

“Have it your way,” Toby decided. “Just don't say I didn't warn you when we're all in jail with him!”

They called the police, and learned that a man calling himself Roger Stevens – although he was carrying no ID – was being held in lockup at the District 12 Police Station on Blue Island Avenue. It wasn't until they got there that anyone thought to ask just how much Roger's bail was going to cost them. The answer was staggering, even when only a tenth was necessary as a down payment to secure his release.

“What did he _do_?” Steve asked, astonished.

The cop at the front desk didn't seem to have the eye for celebrities that Officer Gonzales in Tampa had. His pocket had the name _Dubicki_ on it, and as he spoke he scowled from underneath salt-and-pepper eyebrows nearly as thick as his impressive mustache. “Heroin, mostly,” he said. “He had some pot on him, but we think that was for sale, rather than personal use.”

Steve stared, having no idea how to react. His clone had been arrested for _drugs_? He groped for an explanation... Steve's own life before the serum had been one of near-constant pain, and sometimes aspirin just didn't help. Maybe Roger had just wanted something stronger to numb himself.

Officer Dubicki was waiting for an answer.

“Just a second,” said Steve, and returned to the others. The group conferred, and between the five of them they managed to scrape together enough for the down payment. It was going to make things very tight for the next leg of their journey, especially when nobody dared visit a bank. Since Steve had volunteered to take responsibility, they handed over the money in his name, and he filled out the release forms. There was a line of fine print noting that if Roger didn't appear for his court date, Steve would be required to pay the other ninety percent of the fine.

“Steve Rogers?” Officer Dubicki said, studying the signature.

Steve sighed – here it came. “Yes. That's me.”

But Dubicki just chuckled. “Steven Rogers and Roger Stevens. That's funny. Are you two related somehow, or is it just a thingy? A coincidence.”

“We're... related,” Steve decided. He waited a moment, but Dubicki just nodded. Apparently he hadn't recognized Captain America at all.

Once the paperwork was all in place, another officer brought Roger Stevens out.

Steve knew what he'd been expecting – a clean-cut blond in a cheap suit, skinny and sickly but determined to soldier on in the face of anything the world threw at him. _A sad-eyed little dog with a wolf's worth of fight in him_ , Bucky had once said. Roger wasn't going to _be_ Steve, but Steve was prepared to see parts of himself in Roger, just as he'd begun to see bits of Peggy and Stark in Megan and Toby.

The man the police escorted into the station lobby did not look like Bucky's sad-eyed little dog. He was about the expected height of five foot four, but was wearing thick-soled boots that made him look taller. His hair might have been blond, but the sides had been shaved off and the remaining strip dyed green and black. He had earrings in both ears, a ring in the septum of his nose, and a barbell in his bridge. Under the collar of a scuffed black denim jacket, Steve could see part of a burning rose tattooed on the left side of Roger's neck. Another tattoo, a line of Gothic lettering, peeked out above the neckline of his ratty t-shirt.

Steve had some idea what he would have said to the man he'd been expecting. He had no idea what to say to the one he'd got.

That seemed to be all right, because the first person Roger himself noticed was not Steve at all, but Toby. He shook off the policemen who'd been holding his arms, and swaggered up with a mean-looking grin on his face.

“I knew you'd miss me!” he said triumphantly.

Toby did not smile back. “Like I'd miss herpes,” he snarled. “Thank Megan. I was all in favour of letting you rot.”

“Yeah?” Roger's smile turned into a sneer. “So how's life in the world for Mr. _Useful_ , eh?” he asked. “Have you found a new ass to kiss yet, or do you have to _work_ for your keep like the rest of us.”

“Because _you're_ a model of earning an honest living, right?” Toby poked Roger in the chest. “Why can't you just stay out of trouble?”

“You should _try_ trouble sometime,” Roger replied. “It might do you some good!”

“ _Boys_ ,” Megan said loudly. She stepped in between them and forced them an arm's length apart. “We're not going to do this, okay? Not here. If you two want to yell at each other then you need to do it somewhere that's not a police station, because I fucking swear I will break both your necks and then we'll _all_ be in jail! Outside!” She pointed imperiously at the door. People around them, watching the argument, snickered.

“Yes, _mother_ ,” said Roger. He turned to storm out, and then stopped dead as, for the first time, he noticed Steve. For a moment he stared, mouth open, opening and closing his eyes as if unable to believe what he was seeing. He looked Steve up and down, and then rounded furiously on Megan and Toby. “What the _hell_ is _he_ doing here?” he demanded.

 


	9. Road Trip with Roger

Rather than answer Roger's question right away, Megan calmly took his right arm. Toby grabbed the left one, and they escorted him, not very gently, into the parking lot. Surprisingly, Roger himself did not protest this treatment. Instead, he spent the whole trip ranting at Steve.

“If you wanted to give a shit about any of _us_ , it's a little late!” he spat. “What do you care anyway? Mr. Greatest American Hero! Mr. Better Living Through Chemistry! What are you even _doing_ here? Shouldn't you be inspiring school kids or waving a flag or having a beer with your superhero buddies?”

Once they were safely out in the parking lot, where there were fewer spectators, Megan and Toby let go of Roger. He immediately ran up to give Steve a shove. Steve stumbled backwards, more out of surprise than anything else.

“How are your famous friends?” Roger sneered. “Have you and The Hammer Is My Penis figured out these high-tech modern light bulbs yet? Or do you still prefer fucking whale oil?”

Steve just stared. This tiny man trying to pick a fight with Captain America was almost _funny_ , but at the same time it reminded Steve all too clearly of his own past. How many times had he just kept yelling insults at some jerk twice his size because he was already here and he might as well _deserve_ his imminent ass-kicking? What was he supposed to do, now that he was on the other side of that interaction?

“Roger!” For a second time, Megan stepped in, grabbing Roger's sleeve to get his attention. “Can you shut up for two minutes? If you want to know why we're here, you have to stop talking so we can _tell_ you!”

“Then _tell_ me, and fuck off!” Roger replied.

“Didn't you hear about Stan?” asked Toby.

“No,” said Roger. “What _about_ Stan?”

“What about _Scott_?” Megan asked. “Or Dave? Or Evan?”

“ _No_ ,” Roger repeated. “What about them, and why should I care?”

“Because they're _dead_!” Toby said.

A reply died on Roger's lips. “What?” he asked. “All of them?” When Toby nodded, Roger looked at Megan for confirmation – she, too, gave one short, slow nod. “What?” Roger repeated. “How? What happened?”

“My first theory was that you pissed somebody off, and he was wandering across the country murdering as many of you as he could find,” said Toby.

Megan glared at him. “Fenstermacher cloned himself,” she told Roger, “and _his_ clones are killing _you_ guys for your DNA so they can make _more_ clones who can take the super-soldier serum. Captain America is gonna go find them and fuck their shit up, but first we need to get you out of here so you don't end up being next.”

It appeared to take Roger a moment to digest that, but once he understood, he laughed. “So you two goody-two-shoes are going to _help_ me hide from the cops!”

“Under protest,” said Toby.

“Ha!” Roger pointed at Steve. “And what does Fridge Largemeat think of that? Isn't abetting a criminal _un-American_?” he sneered.

“Not as un-American as an army of enhanced clones,” said Sam.

“Oh, I dunno,” Roger said. “Metaphorically speaking, the Galactic Empire was pretty damn American.” He turned to look Steve over. “Shit, you're ten feet tall. What was _that_ like?”

“The first week or so I felt like I was going to fall over,” Steve admitted. He'd spent some time since this all began wondering how he would react to meeting one of his own clones. Now that he did... he wondered what the clones thought of _him_. If Megan and Toby felt like they were failures because they were not Peggy and Stark, how much worse was it for people like Stan and Roger? Especially when Roger now _saw_ the physical difference between Steve and himself. “Look, I'd love to stay and get to know each other,” Steve said, not sure if this were truth or sarcasm, “but we don't have time. We have to get you out of here and get back on the road.”

The car Steve had originally rented in Florida had seemed tiny with five people in it. Steve and Sam sat in the front seat, while Natasha squeezed into the back with the three clones, all of whom were obviously unhappy about the crowding. It was lucky, really, that Lucinda had already left – they would have needed a bigger vehicle if they'd ended up taking her with them.

“Should we even _ask_ what you were in for this time?” Toby said, as he stretched out one seat belt to accommodate both Roger and himself.

“I did a bunch of heroin and robbed a video store,” Roger replied, in the sort of bored voice somebody might use to describe a trip to the grocery store.

“ _Why_?” asked Toby.

“Because it was a _video store_!” said Roger. “I didn't know they still _made_ those! If the only way history is gonna remember me is for doing something stupid, I wanna be remembered as the guy who robbed the last video store in Chicago!”

Megan sighed heavily and tilted her head back to stare at the car ceiling.

“Did the drugs make that sound like a good idea?” Sam asked.

Natasha leaned forward to talk to Steve. “Where are we taking him?” she asked.

Steve hadn't figured that out yet. “The airport?” No, that wouldn't work – they'd already spent more than they could afford bailing Roger out of jail, and Steve was willing to bet he wouldn't pay for his _own_ plane tickets. “The docks?”

“Are we going to stuff him in a packing crate or something?” Natasha asked. “Remember they don't have passports.”

Toby had mentioned that, hadn't he? The clones didn't even have birth certificates. How had Toby gotten a driver's license? How did _any_ of them get jobs or bank accounts when they didn't have social security numbers? SHIELD had re-activated all of Steve's records for him when they'd thawed him out, but the clones no longer _had_ SHIELD to provide them with paperwork. Their lives suddenly seemed far more complicated – and legally questionable – than Steve had ever imagined.

“Maybe Stark can come up with something,” Steve sighed. That would mean taking Roger to New York with them. _That_ , in turn, would mean spending twelve hours in a small car with Roger and two people who evidently couldn't stand him – and two more who looked like they _wouldn’t_ stand him much longer.

“Do I get any say in this?” Roger whined.

“No,” Megan told him, in the same tone Natasha had used a few days earlier to give _her_ the same answer. “If you _had_ a say, Roger, what would you do? Be honest.”

“Oh, trash a hotel room, fall in love with Winona Ryder, maybe take a gun on a plane,” Roger replied nonchalantly. He sounded as if he were quoting something. If so, it was another reference Steve did not understand.

Toby seemed to understand it. He mimed smacking Roger upside the head, but Roger ducked.

“Right, then,” Steve sighed, and started the car. “I guess we're going to New York.” He checked the time – not quite eleven in the morning. It was going to be a long, _long_ twelve hours.

“First, I think we'd better find a place and trade up to a bigger car,” said Sam.

“Hear, hear!” Toby said from the back seat.

“ _Then_ ,” Sam added, “if you ask me, I think it'd be a better idea to go maybe as far as Toledo and then stop for the night. I want another late night on the road.”

Steve shook his head. “We don't have time to sit around. If we take a night off, the _Santo Eust_ _á_ _quio_ gets that much further ahead of us, and we still have to get to New York before we can even start catching up with it.”

“Steve.” Sam reached over and put a hand on his friend's shoulder. “ _Relax_. You're ready to snap. It'll take _one_ more day to get to New York. The ship won't be in Buenos Aires for at least a week, and we're all exhausted.”

“I'm not!” said Roger.

“Shut up, Roger,” said Megan.

“We can sleep properly,” Sam went on, ignoring the interruption, “and tomorrow we can get to New York at a reasonable hour instead of the middle of the night.”

“Stark won't care when we arrive,” Steve said. “He never sleeps. If we show up at four in the morning he'll offer us cocktails.”

“Maybe not,” Sam insisted, “but if we don't keep up with _our_ sleep we're not gonna be in any shape to do _anything_ when we _do_ catch up with that ship. This isn't like Washington, Steve,” he added. “It's gonna take longer than a weekend to save the world this time. I don't care _what_ they gave you back in the forties, you can't stay up for days on end.”

“And we have two civilians with us,” Natasha put in. “Three, actually.”

“Now you're ganging up on me!” Steve grumbled. “Fine – we'll find a hotel in Toledo and spend the night there, happy?”

Natasha smiled. “Oooh, maybe we can even have a _real_ dinner!” she said.

“That'd be good, too,” Sam agreed. “And _showers_!”

“Showers!” Natasha sighed as if imagining a day at the spa. “We could save the world while _smelling nice_! We'll be able to do interviews after without the reporters standing an arm's length away!”

“All right, all right!” Steve managed to smile. “I get the idea.”

They traded the rental car for an embarrassing blue minivan at an Enterprise Rent-A-Car on Morgan Street, then headed south on I-90 for the journey to Toledo. It was Megan's turn to drive and she turned on the radio in an attempt to keep people from trying to make conversation. It didn't work.

“So, between you and me,” said Roger, who was now sitting between Steve and Toby. “Black Widow. Natural redhead?” he asked hopefully.

“I haven't asked her,” Steve said.

“Carpet? Drapes? No, wait, don't tell me,” Roger said. “She waxes, doesn't she?”

Steve's brow furrowed as he realized what his clone was talking about. “Are you _seriously_ asking me if I've ever seen...” he stopped there, remembering that Natasha herself was in the seat in front of him.

“Actually, I was _asking_ if you've boned her,” said Roger. “I'm guessing no.”

“He hasn't,” Natasha confirmed.

“And something tells me _you're_ not going to,” Toby observed.

“So is this a thing where she won't _let_ you?” asked Roger. “Or are you actually gay for Stark, like in _Us_ magazine?”

“Natasha and I are colleagues and friends,” said Steve curtly. “We have no interest in sleeping with each other.”

Roger nodded. “Gay for Stark. Explains the outfit.”

“Are you normally this obnoxious, or are you doing it on purpose?” Sam wanted to know.

“It's all me, homeboy,” Roger replied smugly.

Steve closed his eyes. The drive to Toledo was going to be four hours. He could already tell it was going to _feel_ several times that long.

He was right. Like Megan on the way to Colorado Springs, Roger quickly seemed to realize that he had a captive audience. _Unlike_ Megan, he didn't want to use this opportunity to talk about lost friends. Roger wanted to talk about _himself_.

His piercings and tattoos were apparently new, having been acquired in the months since the fall of SHIELD. His criminal tendencies, however, were not. SHIELD had used drugs in certain types of interrogation and Roger had a history of helping himself to their supply for both fun and profit. He'd been locked up before for public intoxication, reckless driving, and petty theft, but the government had bailed him out and quietly erased his arrest record every time. “It's the ultimate job security,” Roger said cheerfully. “They made me, so they're stuck with me. Whatever I do, it's always _their_ fault.”

After Steve, Sam, Natasha, and Hill had brought HYDRA down and SHIELD with it, the clones had found themselves adrift in the world without homes or jobs. The others had been scraping by as best they could, but Roger had apparently been _thriving_. His lack of legal identity didn't bother him because, unlike the others, he wasn't interested in legitimate work. He dealt drugs and stole whatever caught his eye. “I see more money in a week than you guys do all year,” he bragged, “and I spend it, too! There's always more. How's tips at the fat elephant restaurant, Megan?”

When he wasn't bragging about his adventures in felony, Roger continued to be inappropriately curious about Steve's sex life. “How about those chorus girls in the old newsreels?” he asked. “Some of them were _smoking_. Legs that went on for miles. How many of _them_ did you bang?”

“I don't remember,” Steve said.

The actual answer was none of them – at the time Steve had known those women, he'd been so unused to being an object of desire that he hadn't known how to respond to their advances. When he'd tried he just came across as awkward, and when he tried _harder_ he sounded like a jerk. The ones who didn't give up after Steve had put his foot in his mouth a couple of times had been creepy. Steve still remembered one brunette who'd looked him over while licking her lips as if he were a slice of chocolate cake. He still wasn't sure if she'd wanted to sleep with him or eat him. The only woman he'd ever felt really comfortable with during the war had been Peggy.

“Oh, come on,” Roger groaned. “What, did the serum leave you _limp_ or something? If I were Captain America, I would be up to my eyeballs in so much pussy, I wouldn't have _time_ to save the world!”

“Lucky for the world Steve considers himself too busy to date,” snarled Natasha.

It felt like several days later, although it was really only seven PM, when they pulled into the lot of a Red Roof Inn off the Ohio Turnpike in Maumee. Everybody took turns in the shower, and then they got take-out from a seafood place up the street. As much as Steve's instinct was not to rest until the fight was over, he had to admit that the stop helped. Everybody got out of the van fed up and exhausted. After showers, changes of clothes, and a filling dinner, they were relaxed and smiling.

They _almost_ managed to ignore Roger, who was hanging around in nothing but his boxers. He turned out to have several more tattoos, including a viking ship across his back and shoulders, and rings in his nipples. Steve wondered what else might be inked or pierced, but didn't dare ask for fear Roger would actually show him.

The hotel had wifi, which allowed Toby to trawl the internet for some photographs of the  _ Santo Eust _ _ á _ _ quio _ . She turned out to be a broad, low ship with her hull painted bright blue and a white superstructure at the stern, capable of carrying about thirty cargo containers on her broad deck. Determining just which of those containers had the clone material in it would require looking at a cargo manifest, and if the papers just said  _perishables_ , as they had for the  _Albatross_ , maybe not even then.

“Is the ship registered in Argentina?” Sam asked. If she were, they might be able to get additional information from a maritime registry office in Buenos Aires. Then they could meet the  _Santo_ _ Eust _ _ á _ _ quio _ in port, knowing exactly what they were going to find on board. The only hurdle would be that they'd have to deal with whoever HYDRA had sent to pick the cargo up.

Toby shook his head. “It's a Brazilian ship. Home port in Rio de Janeiro.”

Roger had been sprawled on one of the beds, eating donuts and flipping channels. He'd found a  _60 Minutes_ special  called  _ The Secret Life of Senator Stern _ , which chronicled a prominent politician's career and involvement with HYDRA. Now he sat up. “Are we going to Rio?” he asked, excited.

“No,” said Toby.

“And if we were, it wouldn't be for Carnival,” Megan said.

“And you're not coming anyway,” Toby added.

Roger snorted and flopped back against the pillows again.

Natasha had found a world map poster somewhere, which she'd folded in three so that only North and South America were visible. Using a red sharpie, she drew in the approximate route from Tampa to Buenos Aires. “Finding the ship shouldn't be too hard,” she said. “We've got her name and call sign, so we can access a coast guard channel and ask for their position. The crew probably aren't HYDRA themselves, but we shouldn't take that for granted. There could easily be a plant or two among them.”

“So it sounds like the option with the least wasted time is to board the ship while she's still at sea, find the material, and dump it overboard,” said Steve. Salt water and sea life would destroy organic material quickly, and even if the container were fully sealed, Natasha's map showed that the Atlantic dropped off to nearly two miles in depth beyond the South American continental shelf. It wouldn't matter if Fenstermacher had a Steve-specific super-soldier serum if he didn't have any clones to use it on. “We'll be going in blind, but we won't have to worry about anybody calling for backup.”

“Board and retrieve,” said Natasha with a smile. “That sounds familiar. Maybe I can even find you a date on the way.”

“Focus,” Steve told her. “No multitasking!”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” she nodded. “Now all we need is a plane for you to jump out of, and a parachute for you to leave behind. Stark can provide both. After he gave SHIELD the rights to the repulsor engines, they gave  _him_ the first quinjet they built with the new tech as a thank-you present. Then he took it and totally overhauled it, apparently just to remind them that he can still build stuff that flies faster and higher than anybody else. It'll have all the flight capabilities we're used to,” she said to Steve, “and probably half a dozen more.”

“Didn't Stark destroy all his personal tech last Christmas?” asked Sam.

“Just the suits,” Natasha assured him. “He kept the jet, and he's been working on new projects since. He says he was in a rut and needed a fresh start.” She rolled her eyes briefly – only Stark would blow up millions of dollars worth of custom equipment because he was 'in a rut'. “The problem is that like the rest of his private stuff...”

Toby interrupted: “it's gonna be bio-keyed so that nobody can use it but him,” he said with a resigned sigh. “I hope it flies like SHIELD's did – although if I can't figure it out, I guess I could rig an override so somebody else can take over.”

“Either way is faster than having to hotwire it,” said Natasha.

“What I'd be worried about,” Toby went on, “is that Stark's AI is probably smarter than that. It could run multiple suits on remote at the same time. I'm  _sure_ it can figure out that its master can't be in two places at once. I've worked with Stark's hardware but I've never really played with the software. I don't know if I could shut it down before it tattled on us.”

Sam looked confused now. “I thought we were just gonna ask if we could  _borrow_ this thing, not sneak in and steal it,” he said. “Why are we worried about this?”

That was true, Steve realized – but now he found he was uncomfortable with the idea of actually talking to Stark about this, and he couldn't put a finger on why. Was it just because he and Natasha were too used to thinking like secret agents, always taking the back way in? “If I know anything about Stark, he won't want us saving the day without him,” Steve said. “He'll want to come along and be the big hero.” Was  _that_ the reason? Steve felt like there must be something more.

“If he comes, I don't,” said Toby. This was not an ultimatum, merely a statement of fact. He didn't want to meet Stark, and would avoid it by any means necessary.

“If he comes, the entire goddamn world is going to end up hearing about it,” Steve said. If there were one thing Stark absolutely could not do, it was keep a secret. “Maybe we  _should_ just steal the thing.”

“Considering that we've already accessed private information under false pretenses, kidnapped a woman at gunpoint, and taken a fugitive across state lines, I'd rather not commit any more federal crimes this week,” Natasha said dryly.

“Got it.” Sam nodded. “State crimes  _only_ .”

“I can handle Stark,” Natasha decided. “If I can make people  _spill_ their secrets, I think I can talk a guy into  _keeping_ one.”

“Is this a plan, then?” Megan actually sounded kind of excited. “Do we have a plan?”

“Not really,” said Steve. “We don't have enough information for a proper plan.”

“This is about an eighth of a plan,” Sam agreed. “The rest we're gonna have to make up on the fly.”

That was asking a lot, Steve thought. Board a ship when they didn't know who would be waiting for them or where their target was. Get that target into the water when it might be buried under other shipping containers and they would have only the gear they could carry. Get back onto the plane without a proper retrieval team. All while the two most powerful members of their team were injured: Steve's stab wounds were already starting to knit, thanks to his enhanced healing, but Natasha's dislocated shoulder had kept her out of the driver's seat since Colorado Springs and would certainly keep her out of any action that might be in their immediate future.

Somehow or other, though, they were going to have to make this work.

“Everybody keep looking for more information, wherever you can think of that we might be able to get it,” he said. “Every little big counts. We also need to work out what we're going to do  _after_ we sink the cargo. Somebody's going to have to catch up with Fenstermacher and whoever else is behind this. And if you think I've forgotten anything, no matter how minor, tell me.”

On the bed behind Steve, Roger suddenly burst out laughing. “Look at this asshole,” he said, pointing to the screen. The documentary was showing footage from a courtroom confrontation between Senator Stern and Tony Stark: Stark was standing up blowing kisses to the press while Stern swore at him. Toby sank in his chair, as if trying to hide from an embarrassing family member.

“Is he like that in real life?” Roger asked. “Or just on TV?”

Steve right – right. They still had to do something with Roger. “What about him?” he asked.

“We could tie him to a brick and throw him in Lake Erie,” Natasha suggested.

“I'm serious,” Steve sighed. “He can't stay with us. Roger,” he turned in his seat. “Where do _you_ want to go?”

“I told you – Rio,” said Roger. “Carnival's about to start! I've always wanted to go to South America anyway. You know what's in South America?”

“Cocaine,” Toby, Megan, and Natasha said in perfect unison.

“A thriving trade in contraband gemstones and antiquities,” Sam added.

“Ruins!” Roger said. “Ancient civilizations and jungles and all that Indiana Jones shit!”

“Roger, you wouldn't survive _two minutes_ in a jungle,” Megan said. “There are probably _plants_ in there that would eat you alive.”

“Except they'd decide it'd be too much trouble to pick all the metal out of their plant teeth afterward,” Toby added.

“None of you guys have any sense of _adventure_ ,” Roger declared in a huff. He wadded up a napkin and threw it at them.

* * *

The next morning, the group slept in until eight, which was positive _laziness_ after the past few days of overnight drives and early mornings. They had breakfast at a nearby Waffle House, then piled back int the van for the nine-hour drive to New York. Accounting for necessary stops and figuring in the change of time zone, Steve figured they would arrive sometime in the mid-evening. That would leave plenty of opportunity to get in touch with Stark, who could probably offer them supplies and equipment along with the loan of the quinjet. That was assuming, of course, that he didn't want to come along and take care of things himself.

In the back of his mind, Steve was already trying to make alternate plans for where they could eat and spend the night. The idea of asking Stark for help was still bothering him. It felt _wrong_.

It was Sam's turn to drive. Steve stared out the window at the snow covered countryside rolling by, trying to close his ears to Roger singing along with the radio. He tried to tell himself that he could see where Roger was coming from. Like Megan and Toby, Roger had a lousy upbringing at the hands of people who considered him a failed experiment, and he'd responded to that with rebellion. People who felt helpless sometimes lashed out in whatever way they could, and for a five foot four inch asthmatic there weren't a lot of lashing-out options. Steve knew that all too well. Roger had all of Steve's own anger and no outlet, and he couldn't be blamed for that.

All of this was true, but none of it made Roger any easier to deal with. Maybe Steve didn't want Stark around because they already _had_ a self-important asshole in the party and didn't need a second one. How had _Roger_ turned out that way, while _Toby_ was the quiet, modest one?

_That_ brought Steve back to thinking about Stark. He remembered the events discussed by the documentary Roger had been watching last night – similar footage of Stark at his congressional hearing had been among the first news Steve had watched after SHIELD thawed him out. It had rubbed him the wrong way even then. Who was Tony Stark to call himself the world's nuclear deterrent? Who was he to turn the defense of the country into his _hobby_?

By the time they stopped in Heritage, Pennsylvania, for lunch and gas, Steve knew what was wrong.

“I've been thinking,” he said, as they climbed back into the van, carrying convenience-store sandwiches, potato chips, and sodas. It was Megan's turn to drive.

“That's dangerous,” Roger drawled.

Steve had by now decided that the only way to cope with Roger was to ignore him. “We were talking last night as if we were planning to borrow Stark's quinjet without his permission. Do you think that's possible?”

“It's definitely possible,” said Natasha, “but it's easier just to ask. Why?”

“I don't think we should ask him if we can avoid it,” Steve said. “Think about it. How do we know which side he's on?”

He expected a response. For the first few seconds he didn't get one. Megan had turned the key in the ignition and the van's engine was running, but other than that, there was silence.

“Are you saying you think _Tony Stark_ might be HYDRA?” asked Sam. He looked _baffled_ , as if this were the strangest thing Steve had ever said.

“Stark's a prick, Steve,” Natasha said, “but he's not a Nazi. Come on.”

“Remember the things he said at his hearing?” Steve insisted. “Stark said he was privatizing world peace – he all but _said_ we didn't need the armed forces anymore, because we had _him_. Doesn't that sound like somebody who thinks humanity can't be trusted with freedom? That's HYDRA rhetoric, right there.” The more Steve thought about it, the more obvious it seemed. How could he have missed it before?

He hadn't been looking for it, that was how. He hadn't looked for it in SHIELD, either, until it had become too obvious to miss. In retrospect, of course, the signs had been there the whole time.

“No, it's not, Steve,” said Natasha gently. “It's Stark rhetoric. He wanted to get the crowd worked up. He thought he was _dying_ , and he wanted to say something memorable.”

“You're sounding a _little_ paranoid, man,” said Sam.

This wasn't the reaction Steve had expected. He'd assumed that once he pointed this out to them, they'd see it, too. “You thought _you_ were being paranoid when we met the second Finster,” he reminded Sam, “but your first instinct was right – he really was a clone.”

“I...” Sam thought for a moment, but realized he had no answer for that. “Yeah, but it's Stark,” he said. “You've worked with him before.”

“We were facing a threat to the world,” said Steve. “Even HYDRA wouldn't have wanted Loki and the Chi'Tauri in charge.”

Sam just stared at him. Steve turned to Natasha, and found the same set of emotions on her face: concern, confusion, and disbelief. “I worked undercover at his company, Steve,” she said.

“You worked for SHIELD, too,” Steve reminded her. “And you still didn't find out about HYDRA until they tried to kill Fury!”

Natasha opened her mouth, but then closed it again without saying anything. She sat back in her seat, arms folded across her chest. “Fine,” she said, all emotion now gone from her voice, leaving only chilly compliance. “We'll do it your way.”

That seemed to settle that, but Steve would have preferred a slightly _friendlier_ response. “Sam?” he asked.

Sam shrugged. “You're the one who's met the guy,” he said. “I'm not gonna judge.” He held up his hands.

“What about you two?” asked Steve, meaning Toby and Megan.

“I don't want to talk to him, but that's just because I don't want to know what he'll think of _me_ ,” said Toby. “So you've got my vote.”

Megan only shrugged.

“ _I_ think robbing Tony Stark sounds _awesome_ ,” said Roger.

“Well, at least I've got _one_ person on my side,” Steve said under his breath. He supposed he'd have to settle for that.


	10. Stealing from Stark

It was about eight o'clock when they arrived in New York City. Roger had started singing bits of _Empire State of Mind_ when they first made out the skyline, but he didn't seem to know the entire song, and kept interrupting it with a nonsensical chant about bacon pancakes. This went on until Toby threatened to pull over and leave him at the side of the interstate. By now Steve had decided that no matter what Roger himself might _say_ about it, he was definitely doing this on purpose. Nobody could be that annoying by accident.

“Hey, if we're in New York, can we go to Gray's Papaya?” asked Roger.

“What's that?” Steve asked. “A restaurant?” He had a feeling that years from now he would remember this week mainly as a series of restaurants.

“Yeah,” Roger said. “It's the hot dog place from _Glee_.”

“If it's a hot dog place why is it called Gray's _Papaya_?” asked Steve. “A papaya is a...” he cut himself off, shaking his head. “You know what? It doesn't matter. No. We're not stopping.” Steve's impatience was getting the better of him. The _Santo_ _Eust_ _á_ _quio_ had been at sea for five days now, and it would take at least one or two more to chase them down and destroy the clone material. Steve could not sit around in this van and eat another crummy take-out meal. Even before this had all begun, he and Sam had been sitting in cars eating food from shady restaurants for _months._ Steve was fed up, and Roger's infuriating presence didn't help. “We're going to Stark's and getting the quinjet. We can stop for food after.”

“What are we going to do, take it through the drive-thru?” asked Sam.

“Can we do that?” Roger asked eagerly. “That would make the greatest Vine ever!”

Steve ignored both of them. “Where does Stark keep the jet?” he asked.

“In a hangar at the top of Avengers Tower,” she replied. “You or I could probably just walk in – when he showed us the plans he said we would all automatically have access, remember? Voice prints with code names.”

Steve did remember that, along with the fancy hologram Stark had used to show them his blueprints – there'd been a large room marked 'hangar' on that. They would have access, but Steve was betting the computer would announce or at least record their presence, and that migh tnot be something they wanted. “All right, can we find out where Stark is right now?”

“According to his twitter, he's at _A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder_ with his girlfriend,” said Sam, holding up his phone.

“Then let's get this done before the play is over,” Steve said. They headed across the bridge into Jersey City, under a darkening sky backlit by the yellow-orange glow of the sprawling city. “How do we get into the Tower?” The last time Steve had been in there, the place had been half destroyed and all the staff had long since evacuated.

“Through the _front door_ ,” Natasha replied, in a voice that was _almost_ sarcasm. “People come and go at all hours of the day and night in New York. We won't attract attention if we look like we know where we're going. Once we're inside, there's a private elevator that can take us up to the penthouse levels. You or I will be able to access it by voice. Toby probably can, too.”

That sounded straightforward enough. “What about the AI?”

“I've got it covered,” Natasha promised. She took out her phone, and began typing something on it. Steve frowned, a little skeptical – could she _really_ hack Stark's computer with a cell phone? Then again, Natasha was a master of multiple fields when it came to espionage. She'd managed to get an origin point out of Zola's flash drive when the program itself was deliberately trying to elude her. Maybe she _could_.

They found a parking meter a couple of blocks from the building and left the van there, taking all their things. Eventually the vehicle would be ticketed and towed, but that was the least of Steve's worries at the moment. He wasn't even particularly concerned about the fact that they still had Roger. Once they got the jet they could drop him off anywhere they wanted. Or just drop him. Out the back hatch. Parachute, as always, optional.

Inside, the lobby of Avengers Tower was open and bright, with tall windows, golden-brown granite floors, and rows of fountains and planters. During the day sunlight would stream in, but in the evening it was lit by half a dozen enormous, glittering chandeliers hanging from a ceiling featuring a mosaic of the night sky. Natasha had been right about it being busy, too: there were people on their way in and out, sitting on stone benches using phones or laptops, or lining up in the independent coffee shop on the right-hand side. A few individuals glanced at them as they walked past the main reception desk towards the elevators – and Steve had to admit they were an odd assortment, especially with Roger added to their ranks – but nobody spoke to them or stopped them.

There were elevators on both sides of the hall: the ones on the left serviced floors one through forty-nine, on the right floors fifty through ninety-nine. Natasha passed them all by and went right to the end of the hallway. Here there was a set of doors with the same fancy brass and wood fittings of the others, but no buttons. Instead, there was a small speaker set into the walls.

“Here,” Natasha said.

Steve looked at Toby. “You want to the honours?” He didn't want himself or Natasha to have to identify themselves in a public place, even one where nobody seemed to be paying attention.

“Fine,” Toby sighed. “What's the password?”

“What do you _think_ it is?” asked Natasha.

Toby tilted his head in a gesture that said _yeah, should have figured_ , and then turned to the speaker. “Uh, I am Iron Man?” he tried.

 _Welcome home, Mr. Stark and guests_ , said the voice of JARVIS, and the elevator doors opened.

The group shuffled inside and the doors shut behind them. Here, too, there were no buttons, but the elevator seemed to know where it was going. It rose smoothly through the lower levels of the building and then emerged onto the outer shell of the tall glass spire. Through glass panels in the back wall they could now see all of Manhattan, laid out in grids of golden-yellow light.

Natasha seemed entirely at ease. She ignored the view entirely, leaning against a side wall and fiddling with her phone. Steve couldn't tell what she was doing – perhaps she was messing with Stark's systems again, or maybe she was playing _Angry Birds_. What he _could_ tell was that nobody else was comfortable. Megan was huddled in a back corner, looking up at the ceiling. Perhaps the view was giving her vertigo. Toby, meanwhile, stood straight and stiff in the exact center of the car, in an almost military posture with his hands behind his back. He was doubtless terrified that at any moment the computer would realize it had made an error. Roger had his face plastered to the window like a little kid's, watching the city, while Sam stood quietly with his hands in his pockets, lost in thought.

Steve himself leaned on the window and stared blankly at the horizon, trying to figure out what they would do if the worst happened. If the elevator stopped between floors, they'd be trapped. They could force the doors and climb out, but they wouldn't know where they were in the building, and they'd be easy to find on the stairs as they tried to escape. Better to find the emergency hatch and climb down the elevator shaft. Steve could probably do that now, but Natasha still had one arm in a sling, and he had no idea whether Toby, Megan, or Roger were up to it. If all else failed, they could break the outside glass, but it was a hell of a lot further down to the street than it had been to the lobby of the Triskelion.

Most elevators would have played a beep or a dink when they reached their destination floor. This one did not. Instead, the doors just slid silkily open again on another lobby area, this one attractively furnished with hardwood floors, overstuffed leather furniture, and potted bamboo. A curved bank of windows looked out on the south end of the island, towards One World Trade Center and the Upper Bay.

“There's a _bar_!” said Roger, pointing.

Now _everybody_ was ignoring him. “Are you _sure_ you don't want to wait for Stark?” Natasha asked. “This is your last chance. He'll probably give us a nice dinner and a place to sleep.”

“We had that, yesterday,” Steve reminded her.

“Nobody's gonna argue with having another one,” Sam said.

It was so, so tempting. When Steve and Natasha had been working for SHIELD, a solid, nourishing meal and a good night's sleep had been mandatory before a mission. Maybe that was, on some subconscious level, why Steve was reluctant to accept them now. It would remind him too much of a time when he hadn't yet realized he was just a tool. That was over – they were fighting a war now, albeit a very small-scale one, and war wasn't _supposed_ to be well-fed, well-rested, or comfortable.

“We have to catch up with the ship,” Steve decided. “The sooner, the better.”

“You're call, _Captain_ ,” Natasha said, and this time her words were _definitely_ loaded with irony. “This way.”

She led them up a flight of frosted glass steps against a wall decorated with framed magazine and newspaper stories about the Avengers, including that stupid _Time_ magazine cover about _A Cold War Ghost Story: the Winter Soldier Unmasked at Last_ that had gotten everything about Bucky so goddam _wrong_ that Steve had torn his copy in half, spine-first. At the top of the stairs was a short hallway that ended in a self-consciously futuristic set of doors in a round frame. Once again, there were no buttons or keyholes, or even a number pad to provide entry – just a speaker set in the wall.

Everybody looked at Toby.

“I am Iron Man,” he repeated, with a little more confidence this time.

A light came on green, and the three panels of the door rotated and slid back into the frame, once again apparently just for aesthetic reasons. Stark was all about making an impression, and the impression of this place was supposed to be _superheroes live here_.

Beyond the doors the hallway opened out onto a glass-paneled hangar, and the revamped quinjet was sitting in the middle of it with the back hatch open and waiting for them to board. Where there'd once been a SHIELD logo on the side of the plane, Stark had re-detailed it with the A and arrow he'd chosen as the insignia of the Avengers – most likely, Steve thought cynically, because he could copyright it. Maybe _he_ was the one selling all that Captain America merchandise.

 _The jet is prepped and ready for you, Sir_ , said the voice of the computer.

“Is there fuel?” Sam asked, as they trooped up the ramp.

Natasha snorted. “This is _Stark_ we're talking about,” she said. “No fossil fuels for him. This thing runs on an internal reactor. It can fly for days and all it'll need is a new catalytic cartridge.” She chose a seat and bucked herself in.

“I guess this part is up to me, too,” said Toby, resigned. He entered the cockpit and eased himself into the pilot's seat as if afraid there were a bomb under it. “This looks familiar,” he said to himself, studying the controls, “but where's the... oh, I see!” Toby flicked a switch, and a holographic display, larger and more intricate than the one Steve had seen on SHIELD vehicles, popped up in front of him.

Roger darted up to take the seat next to Toby. “Shotgun!” he shouted, giddy with excitement.

Steve sat down across from Natasha, and Sam and Megan each found a place. Steve was getting worried now – this had been entirely too easy. Stark was supposed to have one of the best security systems on the planet, but they'd _literally_ walked right in without a single person or machine trying to stop them. And then there was the computer. Steve had heard Stark's computer talk before, and it was never this bland. JARVIS could hold actual conversations with people and often made facetious remarks without being prompted. This was wrong. Was it trying to lull them into complacency while Stark hurried home to confront them? Steve had threatened to fight Stark in the suit, but had never expected to actually have to do so and wasn't sure he'd be up to it. Iron Man was a formidable weapon.

“Can I fly next?” Roger asked.

“Do you have the slightest idea _how_?” asked Natasha.

“Yes, I do!” Roger said proudly. “I used to be SHIELD errand boy. When they needed sensitive documents delivered I was one of the guys who flew the messengers around!”

“We'll think about it. Put your seat belt on,” said Toby. He manipulated the holograms – at his touch, the back hatch closed and the glass doors of the hangar rolled open. From where Steve was sitting he couldn't see Toby's face, but his voice sounded brighter when he spoke again. “I see how this works! This is actually a lot simpler... say what you want about Stark, he definitely knows how to design an interface.” There was admiration in his voice, and also a touch of envy. It was a skill Toby had apparently not inherited.

“Where are we going?” asked Megan. “We can't go straight to Argentina, but we also can't just leave this thing in a parking lot while we stop for dinner.”

“There's an old SHIELD airstrip hidden in a wooded part of Colt Creek State Park in Florida,” Natasha said. “We can spend the night in the facility there if it isn't flooded, and catch up with the _Santo Eust_ _á_ _quio_ in the morning.”

Toby brought up a map in the holographic display and zoomed in on the location. “Found it.”

“You want to go back to Florida?” asked Steve. That felt like backtracking to him.

“Its' the southernmost state,” Natasha pointed out. “It's a good jumping-off point if we're going to South America.”

That made sense. “All right,” said Steve with a heavy sigh. “So it's not just me, then. We really _are_ going in circles.”

“They say that the end of a journey is arriving where you started and understanding the place for the first time,” said Sam.

“In this case _they_ are T. S. Eliot,” Natasha said.

 _I have plotted a course from Manhattan to Colt Creek State Park_ , the computer announced, as a red line appeared in the hologram to represent the great circle route between the two. _Flight time in current weather conditions is expected to be one hour fifty minutes. Would you like to proceed on autopilot, Sir?_

“No, I've got this,” said Toby. There was a tremor in his voice as he added, “geronimo.”

The repulsor engines came to live with a subdued roar, like the sound of a distant waterfall, and the jet lifted slowly and smoothly off the hangar floor. They hovered for a moment, then Toby pushed a throttle forward and the plane thundered out of the hangar into the evening sky.

Steve continued to worry until well after they'd left the lights of Manhattan behind them, expected a squadron of fighter jets or even of remotely-controlled Iron Man suits to be on them at any moment, but it never arrived. As they passed over Chesapeake Bay, his breathing began to settle down. The jet was still in the air, the computer was doing as it was told, and Stark himself was not in evidence. Could it really have been that easy? Could anybody, even a clone, just walk in and take something that belonged to Tony Stark?

“Are you sure the computer's okay, Natasha?” he asked.

“I told you, I took care of it,” she said. “We won't have any trouble from either Stark or JARVIS.” She sat with her arms folded, looking Steve straight in the eye – it was as if she were daring him to ask how she'd done it.

He took the bait. “All right, what did you do?”

She held up her phone, showing a chat window. “I sent Pepper Potts a text message that said, _can you let loverboy know Steve and I are borrowing his jet to go fight Nazis?_ And do you know what she said in reply? She said, _he says to take it through the car wash before you bring it back_.” She turned the phone off and stuck it back in her jacket pocket. “Because he's _Stark_. He's a dick, but he's our friend.”

For a moment, Steve tried to believe she was joking. Then the anger bubbled up inside him again. “Why didn't you _tell_ me you were going to do that?”

“I _told_ you I had it covered, said Natasha.

“He could be telling _anybody_ about this right now!” said Steve. “He could be telling the press! He could be calling Fenstermacher!”

“Or he could be watching the rest of the musical with Pepper.” Natasha shook her head. “When I told you I had it covered, you didn't argue, because you _trust_ me, right? Well, _I_ trust Stark. It may be us against the world,” she added, a bit softer, “but there's more of 'us' than you think, Steve. We might not know where all the bad guys are, but we know _some_ of the good ones.”

A little voice in the back of Steve's head thought that when _Natasha Romanov_ was telling him to have more faith in people there was probably something wrong with him, but he was too angry to listen to it. “How am I supposed to trust you when you go behind my back?” he asked.

“How are _we_ supposed to trust _you_ when _you_ don't trust _anybody_?” Natasha demanded.

“You're a great one to talk about trust!” Steve snarled. “The spy with a thousand identities! You blew all your covers last year and then you went right out and created new ones!”

“That's enough!” Sam took off his seat belt and stood up. He stumbled a bit as the aircraft made a turn, but managed to stand between Steve and Natasha, holding on to the ceiling straps to keep his balance. “We've got a job to do, remember? A mission to complete? And we can't _do_ that if we're turning on each other, can we?”

Steve didn't answer. He wanted to point out that Natasha was the one who'd made trust an issue by contacting Stark after he'd explicitly told her not to, but even in his head that sounded puerile, an adult's version of _she started it_!

“We need to stop in Florida for supplies,” said Sam, “and we might be able to get an idea what's on the _Santo Eust_ _á_ _quio_ if we visit the port there. Then we can find out where the ship is and what we're going to do when we board her. But if _you_ want to save time,” he added, to Steve, “we won't do it by arguing and mistrusting each other. We have to assume we're all on the same side here, okay?”

“Okay,” said Natasha.

“Fine,” said Steve. He _did_ need to be able to trust his team – but that didn't mean he _liked_ any of this. He remembered other missions he and Natasha had been on together, before the fateful night of the hostage rescue at sea... it hadn't been uncommon for them to lose sight of each other. How many little side missions had she been given without his knowledge? Steve did trust Natasha with his life, but he knew he could _not_ trust her not to have her own agenda.

“Good.” Sam sat down again. “Glad to hear it.”

* * *

They landed in Florida around eleven PM. Everybody was starving by then, so Sam and Megan hitchhiked to a Cal-Maine in Zephyrhills for supplies while the rest of the party tried to flesh out their plans under a hovering gray cloud of hostility. The only person who wasn't angry, or afraid of making somebody _else_ angry, was Roger. He lounged on the pavement at the foot of the ramp, munching on a Mounds bar he'd gotten from somewhere and looking up at the sky as it slowly clouded over.

“So if Fenstermacher's clone has a working super-soldier serum,” he said through a mouthful of chocolate and coconut, “why doesn't he use it on _himself_? Why does he need a bunch more of _us_?”

“We've already talked about this,” said Toby. He was re-running his search for pictures of the _Santo Eust_ _á_ _quio_ through the quinjet's computer, hoping the AI would be able to find more information than he could with Google.

“Not while _I_ was here,” Roger complained.

“Dr. Erskine apparently had to tailor the formula specifically to Steve,” said Natasha, perhaps, hoping Roger would stop bothering them once his curiosity was satisfied. “He destroyed the notes that would tell people how to alter it for general use.”

“And Fenstermacher never tried it on _us_?” asked Roger.

“He definitely never tried it on _you_ ,” said Toby.

“Can you guys _please_ just let me think?” Steve asked. Roger's inescapable presence was giving him a headache... and he hadn't had a headache since before he took the serum.

Eventually Sam and Megan returned with supper and supplies so they could make breakfast and lunch the next day, and the mood eased a little as everybody ate. Megan got her phone out, and she and Toby had a face-time call with Agent Fa.

“How's Goji?” Megan asked, worried.

 _She's all right_ , Agent Fa replied, but she sounded unsure. _I think she misses you. She hasn't eaten very much today and she doesn't seem to want to talk to me._

“Oh, yes, she was like that the first week or so I had her, when she missed her previous owner.” Megan shut her eyes, very upset about having had to leave her bird. “She'll warm up to you eventually. She's like a cat,” she added, here voice wistful and affectionate. “Her love is for whoever feeds her. I wonder if she'd talk to me on the phone.”

 _Only one way to find out_ , said Agent Fa. Steve couldn't see the screen of the phone, but he could hear whistling bird noises. _Goji_ , Agent Fa's voice said. _Mama's on the phone!_

Megan smiled, her eyes shiny. “Hello, Goji! It's me!”

 _Gojira! Gojira!_ said the parrot.

Megan beamed. “Don't forget about me before I come back, okay? I love you, Goji.”

 _I love you, Mama_ , Goji said. _I love you_.

* * *

By two in the morning, when everyone finally went to bed, it had started to rain, and it was still raining at nine when they woke up. The quinjet had sleeping bags and blankets in its emergency supplies, but really wasn't a comfortable place to spend the night. In the morning everyone was tired, stiff, and itchy-eyed, and sat silent and sullen with cups of the terrible instant coffee Sam and Megan had brought back from the supermarket. Every time Steve looked at Natasha he found her glaring right at him, as if she were telepathically reminding him that _she_ had wanted to stop for dinner and a night's sleep at Stark's.

In hindsight, Steve was starting to think that he _had_ made a mistake. He couldn't bring himself to be sorry about refusing to trust General Cordero, not when the general was a complete stranger and they _knew_ there had been at least one HYDRA operative in the base. But Steve _knew_ Stark, and when he gave some thought to aspects of the man's personality _besides_ the terrible first impression made by him mouthing off at a congressional hearing... no, Tony Stark didn't want to rule the world. Tony Stark wouldn't know what to _do_ with the world if he _did_ rule it. It would be Pepper Potts who ended up having to do the ruling, and she would immediately reinstate democracy so she wouldn't have to do the work.

Natasha was right – they should have stayed with Stark overnight. Even if that would have meant explaining this, even if it meant Toby would have gone off on his own, even if Stark himself had wanted to come along and take over the mission. Those were all things Steve could have handled much better than himself and everybody else being cold, sleepy, and annoyed.

Megan was the first one who said something that wasn't “good morning” or some other mumbled bit of meaningless social necessity. “Are we leaving right away?” she wanted to know.

“No,” Steve said. “As long as we're here, Sam and I are going to check in with the shipping company and see if we can find out what's actually on the _Santo Eust_ _á_ _quio_ besides the clone material. We might be able to get a container list or something... _some_ kind of guide to what we'll find there, so we won't be going in totally blind.”

“Cops or reporters?” asked Sam automatically.

“Lawyers,” Steve said. “It worked last time.”

The two men called a taxi and made their first stop at a public gym where they could shower and shave, and at least not _look_ like they'd spent the night on the floor of a stolen airplane. The previous night, Steve had felt like they were backtracking. By the time he and Sam arrived at the Tampa Bay Port Authority in the guise of suit-clad representatives of the Law Firm of Piper and Shea, he was feeling a downright spooky sense of _deja vu_. In the past week they'd traveled around four thousand miles across the United States and back... and yet here they were, just a two-minute drive from the shipyard they'd visited in this exact roles a week earlier. Talk about coming full circle.

“I'm Piper,” Sam said to the receptionist.

“I'm Shea,” Steve added, handing her a business card.

“We're representing the Roxxon Corporation, looking into a possible theft,” Sam explained. “Part of the cargo from the _Albatross_ may have been illegally transferred to a ship called the _Santo Eust_ _á_ _quio_ last Thursday. We need to have a look at the paperwork.”

The receptionist sitting behind the curved cherry-wood desk was a young black woman with a long neck, a shaved head, and a pair of plastic-rimmed glasses that kept slipping down her nose. She peered at the two men over the rims, then said, “I didn't get an email about this. I'll have to call the harbourmaster.” She picked up the phone.

That made Steve nervous, but he and Sam stood their ground. There was still a chance they could lie their way through this.

“Hi,” the receptionist said on the phone. “Dad? There are two guys here who say they're a law firm hired by Roxxon. Doesn't Roxxon usually have their _own_ lawyers?”

Steve looked at Sam. Sam looked at his watch.

“You know what?” Sam said. “We have another appointment right after this, so if he's busy we really can't wait. Maybe tomorrow, if he's got a free spot in his schedule.”

“Of course,” the receptionist said icily.

They trudged back outside to hail another cab. At least the weather today was cool and cloudy, and they were no longer sweating in the hot sun under their layers of shirt, vest, and jacket.

“She probably would have bought it if we'd still had that Harvard ring,” Sam grumbled.

By the time they arrived back at the plane, the sky was starting to clear and the sun was beginning to dry the damp tarmac. Natasha had the sling off her shoulder and was doing some exercises to help her muscles heal, under Megan's direction. Roger was sprawled bonelessly in the co-pilot's seat with one leg dangling over the armrest, listening to something that barely qualified as music even by the twenty-first century's rather forgiving standards. He had a cardboard box over his head to provide shade as he napped. Toby was next to him in the pilot's seat, playing with an image of a ship in the holographic display.

When she saw them coming, Natasha went and sat down on the ramp to let Megan put the sling back on. “Did you learn anything?” she asked.

“We learned that the Tampa Bay Port Authority practices nepotism,” said Steve.

“But their receptionists are still smarter than the ones at the shipyard,” Sam added.

“Other than that?” Steve said. “No.”

Natasha was disappointed, but not surprised. “Toby and the computer have been making friends,” she said. If she felt any pain from Megan working with her shoulder, she didn't show it. “They've come up with some extra information, and I have a few ideas what we could do with it. Do you want to _hear_ it?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.

She was still mad at him – Steve made a mental note. The childish part of him was tempting to say no, he'd do the planning himself, but he couldn't do that. They needed Natasha's expertise too much. “Every little bit helps,” he said, then leaned back a bit to look into the cockpit. “Are we sure the computer's not reporting everything he does back to Stark?”

“It might be,” Natasha said. “Since we haven't heard from him yet, my working theory is that Stark doesn't give a shit.”

Steve nodded and sighed – she was probably right, and even if the computer _were_ spying on them, there was nothing they could do about that now. “All right. Let's hear what you've got.”


	11. Piracy on the HIgh Seas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincerest apologies to anybody in the audience who actually speaks Portuguese.

At a verbal command the windshield darkened, and the entire party crowded into the cockpit to gather around the display, where Toby proudly brought up a three-dimensional wireframe model of a ship that was at least _similar_ to the _Santo Eust_ _á_ _quio_. He explained that running his image search through the quinjet computer had allowed the AI to extrapolate a bit from photographs and satellite images, and give them its best guess at the layout of the vessel. “He says this model is probably around sixty-five percent accurate,” Toby said, “but that's still a lot better than we had before.”

“Better than one eighth,” Sam agreed.

Toby had a laser pointer he'd found somewhere, and used that to indicate different parts of the rotating hologram as he talked. “A ship this size normally carries a crew of about six, but has accommodations for twelve and in an emergency can sail with as few as four. We shouold probably expect something between six and ten. Since the home port is Rio de Janiero, the captain will probably be a Brazilian citizen, but the rest could really be from anywhere.”

“Does anybody else speak Spanish or Portuguese?” asked Natasha.

“I speak Spanish,” Sam volunteered.

“Mine is pretty good,” Steve said. “Spanish, that is. No Portuguese.” After Gabe Jones had demonstrated how useful it was to be multilingual, Steve had taken whatever opportunities he could to learn new languages as he and the commandos traveled across Europe. Portuguese, however, had somehow never come up.

“I learned a bit of Spanish working in Orlando,” said Toby, “but most of it's driving directions.”

“I can order dinner at a Mexican restaurant and that's about it,” Megan admitted.

“So I'm the only one with any Portuguese,” said Natasha. “That means communicating with the captain and crew will probably have to be my job.” She glanced at Steve as if about to ask a question, but apparently decided against it. “After boarding, our first job will be to round up the crew and get them indoors where they can't interfere with our work.”

“The bridge should be here.” Toby indicated the top level of the ship's superstructure, where the windows would provide a view over the stacks of cargo containers. “There's a door on either side, as well as an interior staircase, so we'll need at least three people to keep the crew under control.”

“One of them will have to be me,” Natasha said, “and if need be I can access the ship's computer to see the cargo manifests. If nothing else, we can find out which containers we _won't_ have to dump. There's no need to destroy anything we don't have to.”

Toby brought up another diagram and enlarged it. “The containers are interlocking and will be secured to the ship and each other by clamps and pins.” A crude animation demonstrated the mechanism. “Once we know what's there, somebody will have to go physically pull the pins or open the locks so we can push the containers overboard.”

“That's your job,” Natasha told Steve. “You're the only one strong enough to move the laden containers.”

Steve self-consciously rolled his shoulder, feeling the stretched as he moved the not-quite-healed muscle. He could bench press nearly two tons on a good day, but this past week had been full of very bad days, and things in the real world were seldom as easy to work with as a barbell. Still, since the ship did not have an onboard crane, they didn't have another option. “All right,” he said, “so that's Natasha on the bridge, with two other people.” Their options for _that_ were severely limited, too. “Megan, are you any good with a gun?”

“I...” Megan looked at her feet. “I can _aim_ ,” she said. “At a target, I mean. But I can't actually shoot anyone. I've tried. I can't do it. I can _fight_ people,” she explained awkwardly, “but that's different.”

“That's all right,” Steve told her. He understood where that might come from, even if it wasn't what they needed right now. “Hopefully you won't actually have to shoot anyone. So that's you and Sam with Natasha, while I take the cargo container.” That wasn't ideal. If he were going to be pulling locks and pins strong enough to hold freight to a deck in rough seas, he would have preferred to have another person along, in case of surprises.

“I can shoot,” Toby volunteered. “I've made my own targeting sights.”

Steve had thought Roger was probably asleep, but now he spoke up from under his box: “it'll shoot the fleas off a dog's back at five hundred yards, Tannen!” he said, again apparently quoting something Steve was not familiar with. He held up a fist.

“Damn right,” said Toby, bumping his own fingers against Roger's.

“Yeah, but we need _you_ to fly the plane,” Steve said. It was too bad, though – another person, especially another person with good aim, would have been an asset. He wasn't going to leave the plane on autopilot for something as tricky as picking them back up from a moving ship, but there were other possibilities. “You mentioned bypassing the personalization,” he said. “Maybe _Megan_ could fly...”

“I can fly!” Roger sat up and took the box off his head. “I was a pilot at SHIELD, remember? They had to give us all _something_ to do, and I got bored as hell pushing paper, so they gave me that. I could fly this thing in my _sleep_ ,” he added proudly. Something about his tone made Steve wonder how literally true the statement was – especially given Roger's professed narcotics habit.

Steve's first impulse was to tell him to go back to sleep, but he didn't. If they could take Toby along, then he with a weapon and Megan the hand-to-hand fighter could back up Natasha on the bridge. They could keep the crew quiet while Natasha accessed the computer, and Steve could have Sam with him to help dump the cargo.

“Come on,” Roger added, seeing Steve's hesitation. “Aren't you supposed to be doing trust exercises or some shit? Trust me!”

Steve's gut did not want to trust Roger. They'd only known each other a few days and in that time Roger had been nothing but an insufferable pain in the ass. On another level, though, perhaps the deepest one possible, Roger _was_ Steve. The two of them were literally flesh and blood kin, and Steve himself had once been aimlessly angry at the world, although he hoped he hadn't been quite such a prick about it. Maybe Roger, too, just needed some direction. Besides, one extra person was a lot when you only had five to begin with.

“All right,” he decided.

Roger pumped a fist in the air. Toby sighed theatrically and shook his head.

“So,” Steve traced their route on the hologram with his finger. “Toby overrides the biological locks on the plane. We board the ship from the air. After we've secured the bridge, Natasha reassures the crew and, if possible, gets the cargo manifest. Then Toby and Megan help her keep an eye on everybody while Sam and I dump the cargo. Once that's done, we re-group on the superstructure, Roger lowers the cable to pick us up, and we're gone.” It sounded simple enough.

“Where to?” asked Megan.

“Carnival,” said Roger firmly.

“To find Fenstermacher and his colleagues,” Steve corrected. “If they've got a working super-soldier serum, we have to destroy that, too.”

“Because Captain America can't handle a little competition?” asked Roger.

Steve glared at him. “Because the serum is a weapon in the wrong hands,” he said. It was a weapon the world hadn't been ready for in the forties, and still wasn't ready for in the 2010s. “Now, before we leave, there is one more thing I want to say.” He took a deep breath and looked at Megan and Toby – Roger was included by extension. “This is going to be difficult and dangerous. Toby, you were a tech guy at SHIELD, and Megan...” he paused, realizing he didn't know what Megan had done.

“I was a medic,” she said. “I was field-qualified, but I mostly worked in the infirmary in Houston. I also taught self-defense to some of the younger recruits,” she added, perhaps hoping to sound more formidable.

There was nothing wrong with any of that, but that wasn't the point here. “Neither of you are field agents,” Steve said. “I just want to remind you that you don't _have_ to do this if you don't want to. This isn't your problem.” He'd given _Sam_ that choice once – it was only fair to give it to Toby and Megan as well.

Their reactions, however, were very different from Sam's quiet affirmation. “What?” asked Megan. She looked confused and hurt. “It _is_ our problem, though!”

“It's definitely _my_ problem!” Roger said, also upset. Steve was a bit startled to see him look so serious. “You were worried they'd kill me next!”

Toby looked _angry_. “Is that a _hint_?” he demanded. “Do you want us to leave? Because if we're on your shit list now, too, just _say_ so!”

Steve's stomach dropped as he realized how the clones must have interpreted his offer. Last night he'd argued about _trust_ with people he'd known for months or years, while Toby, Megan, and Roger were acquaintances of only a week. Of _course_ they thought he wanted to get rid of them. Worse than that, he had a pretty good idea that they were used to thinking of themselves as failures, as something that had turned out _not quite good enough_. Now they would think they weren't good enough for _this_ , either.

“No!” he said quickly. “I'm not giving you a hint, I'm giving you a _choice_. You don't have to leave. I _want_ you to stay, actually, the more people the better.” The job would be nearly impossible with only three people, even three people as well-trained and battle-ready as Steve, Sam, and Natasha. “But you _can_ go if you want to.”

“You want them to stay? Really?” asked Natasha. “You _trust_ them?”

Sam rubbed his forehead, groaning.

“I'm trusting _all_ of you,” said Steve firmly. “I just don't want you to feel obligated, okay? I've done this before.” He nudged Sam. “Right? When we left Washington, I told you the same thing, right?”

“Right,” Sam said, and turned to Toby and Megan. “He's not being a suspicious bastard, he's being a self-sacrificing idiot. He does both.”

“If we wanted to go, we wouldn't have come this far,” said Toby, but he was sullen, arms folded across his chest.

“You won't be sorry,” Megan said. She was not angry, she was almost pleading. “We promise.”

“Then we're agreed, and it's fine,” Steve said. “I just wanted to be sure. Are we all okay?”

“Yeah,” grumbled Toby.

“We're good,” said Roger, pulling his box back over his head.

Megan said nothing at all.

“Good,” said Steve with a sigh. The day before a mission and his entire team – such as it was – hated him. At least had only himself to blame.

* * *

Before they left, Natasha asked Megan to help her cut her hair and dye it a shade closer to its original red. Steve didn't have a uniform to wear – unless they were to count a navy polo shirt with white stripes in _sort of_ the right place – and Sam didn't have his wings, but Natasha's uniform had never been anything more elaborate than the contrast between her black clothing and red hair. If they were going to be doing superhero work, at least one of them ought to look the part, and if she were the one who was going to be talking to the ship's crew, Natasha was probably a good choice.

Megan agreed, but her hands kept shaking as she worked on it, dropping dots of red dye onto Natasha's shoulders. When this happened, she would hiss swear words through her teeth and dab the spots away with kleenex, looking ever more upset and nervous every time.

“It's fine,” Natasha assured her. “This is an old shirt anyway.”

“Come on, Meggie!” Roger grabbed Megan's shoulder, making her jump. “Be _excited_ , would you? This is real life secret agent shit! This is the stuff SHIELD would never let us do!”

Not far away, Toby was kneeling on the floor next to Roger's cardboard box, which he was using an a table while assembling some kind of device out of parts from his camera ring, his laser pointer, and a ball-point pen. “SHIELD wouldn't let us do it because we're _terrible_ at it,” he said.

“You're more than capable,” Natasha assured them. “Especially you, Megan. The first time I saw you, you had Captain America pinned in the parking lot, remember?”

Megan nodded, but she didn't look reassured.

Steve didn't say anything. The reason Megan had been able to overpower him was because he honestly hadn't been trying very hard to stop her – he'd been too distracted by the fact that he was fighting a woman with _Peggy's face_ , and honestly, he still wasn't over that. He kept doing double-takes every time he saw her out of the corner of his eye. But telling her that he'd _let_ her win their brief match wouldn't do anything for her confidence.

In the early evening, they packed up some extra supplies and made sure there was ammunition for both Natasha's glocks and Sam's TMPs, then took off for what the computer estimated would be around a sixteen-hour flight. The sun sank quickly as they headed southeast along what hould have been the _Santo Eust_ _á_ _quio_ 's approximate route, and soon they were flying in darkness, with the lights of the Bahamas glittering far below them.

“I'm gonna sleep,” Toby announced. “Or try to, anyway. The computer says we'll enter Brazilian airspace at about nine tomorrow morning. Autopilot can handle it overnight. Right?” he asked the computer.

 _With pleasure, Sir_ , it replied.

“Sounds like a plan.” Sam stood up and stretched. “I feel I should mention, by the way, that while boarding a ship uninvited is technically piracy, that's an _international_ crime. We're still avoiding the federals.” He smiled at Natasha.

“Thanks. That makes me feel way better,” she nodded. “Although if we wreck the jet... will that be considered vandalism?”

“Vehicular accident,” Sam assured her. “Vandalism is damage with _intent_.”

Roger was already curled up asleep in the passenger-side seat of the cockpit, which he refused to vacate. Toby reclined the pilot's seat as far as it would go, told the computer to wake him if anything happened, and went to sleep with his feet up on the dashboard. The rest of them bedded down as best they could in the other seats, or rolled up in blankets on the floor.

Neither was comfortable. Steve chose the floor because he preferred to be able to stretch out rather than try to sleep sitting up, but that meant cold metal only a couple of layers of fabric from his skin, and feeling the constant vibration of the engines as the jet rumbled through the air. It reminded him of sleeping rough during the war – trying to snatch a couple of precious hours on the hard, chilly ground, while a battle raged not far away. His dreams were ugly and fragmented, and he did not remember much more than flashes of them in the morning.

When he woke, Natasha and Toby were already up, and Natasha was on the radio trying to contact their quarry. “ _Santo Eust_ _á_ _quio, Santo Eust_ _á_ _quio_ ,” she said, “ _Esta é Base Naval Almirante Ary Parreiras. Retorno?_ ”

Steve came closer to listen. Toby was watching the controls, while Roger munched boredly on potato chips. The radio crackled.

“ _Santo Eust_ _á_ _quio, Capitão Correio,_ ” came the reply. “ _Há algum problema?_ ”

Natasha looked up at Steve and smiled. “ _Sem problemas, Santo Eust_ _á_ _quio_ ,” she assured them. Although Steve spoke no Portuguese, it was close enough to Spanish that he could guess what she said next: having assured Captain Correio that nothing was wrong, she asked for his position.

The voice on the radio provided it with what sounded like an apology, and Toby brought up the position on a map. “Right here,” he said, pointing to a dot just north of the mouth of the Courantyne River, on the border of Guyana and Suriname. “We've passed them,” he said surprised – they'd expected to still be an hour or so behind the ship. “They must have made a stop.”

“Why would they stop?” asked Steve. A dozen terrible possibilities popped up in his head one after the other: maybe Airman Finster had warned them that their cargo was in danger, and they'd passed it on to somebody else. Maybe they'd stopped and picked up a dozen highly-trained agents or mercenaries to protect it. Maybe _both_ , just to set a trap.

“ _Santo Eust_ _á_ _quio, por que você está atrasado?_ ” Natasha asked.

“ _Paramos em Aruba para assumir três passageiros_ ,” was the reply.

“ _Quantas pessoas estão a bordo?_ ” Natasha asked.

“ _Dez. Nós não estão sobrecarregadas._ ”

“ _Obrigado_ ,” said Natasha, and shut the radio off. “Ten people,” she told Steve. “Seven crew, and three civilian passengers they picked up in Aruba.”

Sam had joined them by now. “Passengers from Aruba shouldn't be HYDRA,” he decided. “If they wanted to plant operatives on board they'd have done it in Tampa. It'll be the crew we have to worry about.”

“How long to get back to where they are?” asked Steve.

“Twenty minutes,” said Toby, checking the instruments.

Roger wadded up his potato chip bag. “Then let's shake it like a polaroid picture!” he declared. This must have been another reference, but even under that assumption Steve couldn't make any sense of it.

Steve would have liked a little longer to prepare himself, to think things through and maybe make sure everybody had cooled down from last night, but as it was he had only just enough time to gobble some breakfast and gear up. A SHIELD team would have been in matching tacsuits, laden with weaponry, briefed and ready to go – a model of military-style efficiency. What Steve saw when he looked at _his_ team was not quite so encouraging. Megan was in patterned leggings and a shirt with Tinkerbell on it. Sam had never changed out of the dress pants and beige button-down he'd worn to pose as Mr. Piper the Lawyer. Only Natasha, in a leather jacket and black skinny jeans, looked remotely like a superhero right now, and that was mostly because she _always_ did.

Toby – in scuffed carpenter's jeans and a t-shirt with Janet Leigh's screaming face on it – made some last-minute updates to their hologram of the ship. “It looks like there's one less level in the superstructure than the computer predicted,” he said, rotating the view to show the vessel from above, as they would see it while descending to board. “That means less stairs to climb, but we might not always be able to all see one another.”

“We'll do what we can,” said Steve. He buckled himself into a safety harness, then helped Megan with hers. “You're gonna be okay,” he assured her, tugging on the straps. She'd looked so fierce and competent when he'd confronted her in that parking lot, only a week ago. At the time he hadn't realized she'd believed she was fighting for her life. “Everybody ready?”

“Ready.” Toby zipped up his jacket.

“Ready.” Natasha handed Toby one of her glocks. He immediately ran a string around the barrel, made a couple of measurements with a small metal ruler, and then clipped the pen-and-laser-pointer decide he'd built to the top of it. It was some kind of sighting device.

“Ready,” Sam agreed.

Steve hooked the line on their harnesses onto the winch. “Open the back!” he ordered.

Roger gave them a thumbs-up, and the hatch at the back of the plane rumbled open.

The group was immediately hit by a spray of cold salt wind. The weather on the central Atlantic that day was sunny, but the wind was stiff and cold, and when Steve looked down he could see the _Santo Eust_ _á_ _quio_ riding up and down on heavy seas. This wasn't going to be like the calm night when Steve and Natasha had gone to rescue hostages for SHIELD. As well as a directive and possible enemies, they would have the motion of the ship to contend with.

“Go _lower_ ,” Steve called up to Roger. “Everybody get ready to cut yourselves loose the _moment_ you touch the superstructure, otherwise you're gonna have a nasty fall!”

Sam and Natasha looked ready. Megan had her jaw set and her fists closed tight around her harness, looking like she wished she were still in her restaurant. Toby had gone very pale, as if he'd only just realized how far there was to fall.

Roger brought the jet down until they were no more than a hundred feet above the pitching deck. From there Steve could see a crewman – an elderly-looking white man with a mustache and aviator sunglasses – hanging onto a rope, getting soaked by the spray as he checked the clamps on the cargo containers. Unfortunately, this sailor could see _them_ , too. As they descended, he heard the engines and looked up with a surprised shout. Steve couldn't hear what he'd said over the roar of wind and machinery, but the sailor abandoned what he'd been doing and began making his way aft.

“We've been spotted!” Steve announced. “Go! Go!”

The winch unspooled, and they dropped together onto the roof of the superstructure. As the ship rose on the next wave, the cable holding everybody began to slacken.

“Unhook!” Steve ordered. “ _Now_!”

He undid the carabiner holding his own harness. Sam, Natasha, and Megan were all fast enough. Toby wasn't, and as the ship slid down into the trough he was yanked off his feet with a terrified squawk. Megan shrieked his name and reached for him, but he was already gone – for a moment Steve could see him dangling there under the hovering quinjet, and then they began to rise on a crest again.

“Grab him!” Steve shouted. He caught one of Toby's legs. Megan got the other one, and Natasha unhooked his harness from the line. When the ship bobbed down again, all five of them went with it, and slid off the superstructure to land in a dazed, bruise tangle of bodies on top of the first row of cargo containers.

“Everybody okay?” Sam asked, checking on the clones first. Toby looked so pale and shaken that Steve glanced down to see if he'd actually wet his pants, but he hadn't. He was panting, and would probably have some bruised ribs where the harness had yanked on him, but he looked whole otherwise.

“I'm okay!” he shouted to be heard above the wind. “I'm okay, I'm fine!”

“Good!” Steve and Natasha helped Megan up. “Crew first! Let's go!”

There were four people waiting on the bridge, and they'd now been warned of what they most likely believed were pirates attacking from the air. When the party burst in on them – Steve and Megan through the port door, and Sam, Natasha, and Toby on the starboard side – they were arming themselves with machine guns they were pulling out of a metal locker. The nearest man shouted and aimed at Steve, but Megan did a cartwheel, wrapped her legs around him and slammed him to the ground in a move not unlike one Natasha might have used. His weapon slid across the floor and Steve scooped it up.

“ _Bom dia, meus senhores_!” Natasha announced. She had her glock in her good hand, and moved out of the way so Sam and Toby could enter the room and surround the four sailors. “ _Coloque as suas armas no chão e levante as mãos acima de suas cabeças!_ ”

That must have been Portuguese for 'drop your weapons and put your hands up', because that was what the men did. Megan let the fallen sailor up and snatched a gun from one of his comrades. Maybe she couldn't really bring herself to shoot anyone, but in that moment she certainly _looked_ as if she could. The hands that had shaken while dying Natasha's hair were now as rock-steady as the heaving ocean would allow.

“ _Convocação da tripulação e dos passageiros. Diga-lhes para vir desarmado, com as mãos visíveis_ ,” Natasha ordered.

“ _Eles já estão chegando!_ ” said one, a middle-aged man in a faded Hawaiian shirt. His voice identified him as the Captain Correio Natasha had spoken to on the radio.

“He says they're coming,” Natasha translated. “Toby, Megan, get outside and wait for them.”

A few moments later, three more men arrived on the bridge. The two clones escorted them to sit down with their crewmates. So far, Steve thought, so good.

“ _Onde estão os passageiros?_ ” Natasha demanded. She wanted to know where the passengers were. Captain Correio's reply sounded like a plea – Natasha passed it on to the others. “The passengers are a woman and her two children. He told them to stay below and hide.”

“ _Você é a voz do rádio_!” the Captain said, pointing at Natasha – he had recognized her voice, too. “ _Quem é?_ ”

Natasha's face was cold as she replied. “ _Eu sou a Viúva Negra_ ,” she replied, and that needed no translation. Steve couldn't tell if any of the sailors knew who _a Viúva Negra_ actually _was_ , but they were clearly intimidated. “Boys,” Natasha added, meaning Steve, Sam, and Toby, “keep them quiet. Megan, help me find a cargo manifest.”

The men kept their guns trained on Captain Correio and his crew, while the two women searched the bridge. They first checked the screens in the avocado-coloured consoles, but the _Santo Eust_ _á_ _quio_ was an older, unsophisticated ship. It had the instruments it needed to navigate, but no central computer as a more modern vessel would. Any record of its cargo would be on paper somewhere. Natasha and Megan began shuffling through piles of letters, maps, and calculations.

“Here's something!” Megan held up a clipboard. “There's a list of something here – I can't read it, though.” She handed her find to Natasha: a water-damaged school exercise book, with a numbered list of items scrawled in black pen.

“That's more like it.” Natasha ran a finger down the list, but didn't seem to find what she was looking for. “Tampa... Tampa... Tampa... they picked up half their cargo in Tampa,” she said. “And the handwriting's too terrible to tell what's _in_ any of these.”

“We'll just have to dump the whole thing, then,” sighed Steve. That would be a lot of work.

“Wait,” Sam held up a hand. “Why not just _ask_? The crew aren't our enemies, remember? Explain why we're here.” He looked at Natasha. “Maybe they'll just tell us.”

“You have to be kidding,” Steve protested. The last time they'd gone somewhere hoping for willing help, Airman Finster had locked them in a room with a brainwashed mutant assassin.

Natasha, however, turned and spoke to Captain Correio. “ _Capitão_ ,” she said, “ _sue navio está transportando armas para HYDRA. Capitão América precisa encontrar a caixa que você assumiu pouco antes de sair, depois do_ Albatross _foi sabotado._ ”

One of the other sailors looked up. “ _Capitão América?_ ” he asked. Seven heads turned towards Steve, and one by one, faces brightened in recognition. “You are Captain America!” the same man said, in heavily accented English.

Steve lowered his gun a little and stood up straight, trying to look heroic – no easy task in a spray-dampened polo shirt. “That's me,” he said.

“ _Ajude-nos a despejar as armas_ ,” Natasha promised, “ _e vamos deixar o navio sem prejudicar você_.” Steve could figure out what that meant: _help us dispose of the weapons and we will leave your ship without hurting you._

The sailors huddled together and talked the idea over in whispers. What if they refused, Steve wondered. What if Sam had been wrong and one of the crew men was working for HYDRA? What if they _all_ were?

Finally, Captain Correio stood up. “ _Número dezessete_ ,” he said.

“Number seventeen,” Natasha translated. She checked the list, running her finger along the line of nearly-indecipherable handwriting. “ _Refrigerado – perecíveis_!” she said with a nod: _refrigerated - perishables_. “Fore starboard corner, the last one loaded!”

Steve hesitated. “Are we sure they're telling the truth?” he asked.

“Just _go_ ,” said Natasha, exasperated.

Steve nodded to Sam, and the two of them went back outside and climbed over the railing onto the stacks of cargo containers. The ship held five rows of three, piled two or three deep near the stern, but in only a single tier at the prow, a hundred feet away.

Steve could have run that distance on level ground in a few seconds. Crossing slippery metal on a rough sea was an entirely different challenge. The corrugated steel of the containers was freezing cold and slick with salt spray, but at least there were ropes and pins to hold on to as the two men worked their way towards the front of the ship. Indoors, focused on talking to the crew, the rocking had seemed gentle and regular. Out here, where they could actually _see_ the ocean rising and falling in tremendous hills of water on all sides, and with the wind and water buffeting them, it seemed wild and violent. They made slow progress on all fours, fighting the wind and spray and their own stomachs.

“It just _had_ to be way at the front, didn't it?” Sam shouted over the roar of the elements.

“No challenge otherwise!” Steve replied. The container's position would at least make it easy to dump, he thought – if it had been in the middle of the cargo somewhere, they would have had to take everything apart to get at it.

Suddenly, Steve heard two distant popping sounds. It was hard to tell over the constant noise of air and sea, but they seemed to have come from astern. Had Natasha shot somebody? When he looked, back, he couldn't see anybody outside the ship's white superstructure. Whatever had happened, it had happened indoors. “Did you hear that?” he asked Sam.

“Like gunshots?” Sam asked. The sound repeated itself, and then again. For a moment Steve was torn... should they go back and find out what was happening? No, he decided. No matter what was going on back on the bridge, they had to dump the clone material before they did anything else. He had to _trust_ Natasha and the clones. Without saying anything, Steve began working his way forward again, and Sam silently followed him.

After what felt like an hour of slow progress, they made it. The container had been painted red-orange in an attempt to disguise the rust, but the paint was old and flaking. The entire _G_ was missing out of the word _REFRIGERADO_ stenciled on the side, and the number _17_ was mostly visible where the vanished black paint had kept the red beneath from fading. The inner back corner clamp was nearest to where Steve was, so he grabbed that one.

“Get the other corner,” he told Sam.

Sam dragged himself the eight feet to the outer corner, then yelped in surprise as the ship rolled, splashing him with cold Atlantic water. Steve automatically glanced up to see if his friend were okay, and caught a blur of motion as a human figure used the ship's motion to swing up on top of the container and land in front of Sam.

A wiry woman with short dark hair and knives in her knuckles: LJH-Χ23.


	12. Kill Switch

Sam shouted an obscenity and rolled out of the way as Χ23's claws came down. Steve called his friend's name, then took a brief moment to mentally prepare before he threw himself at the woman. They rolled off the top of the cargo container together just as the ship pitched up again, slamming them into the cold, slippery metal of the forecastle deck. Gasping to re-inflate his lungs, Steve grabbed the anchor spool to pull himself to his feet. If he could keep Χ23 distracted, maybe Sam could finish releasing the clamps on container seventeen.

Keeping Χ23 distracted, however, might be suicide. If they'd learned anything from their previous encounter with this woman, it was that she was all but indestructible – she was already getting up from a fall that had winded even Steve. The only way to deal with her seemed to be by trapping her, but here on the ship there was no giant magnet to latch on to her apparently metallic skeleton. Perhaps she was heavy enough to sink if Steve threw her overboard, but he didn't want to do that. The empty anger in her face – her blank, dilated eyes that suggested the person behind them wasn't quite _there_ – reminded him too much of Bucky. Steve needed to believe that Bucky could be saved, and that had to mean that Χ23... that _Laura_ could be saved, too.

Speaking Bucky's name had seemed to confuse him, to bring him partially out of whatever it was HYDRA had done to him. Maybe the same thing would work now, or at least help Steve keep Χ23 away from Sam.

He backed away from her, hanging on to the various machines bolted to the forecastle so he wouldn't be thrown off his feet by the motion of the ship. Χ23 followed, not hanging on at all – she seemed to keep her footing by sheer luck as she came at Steve over and over, kicking and slashing. Her claws struck sparks on a flywheel, shaving off chips of paint.

Steve's first attempt to speak to her was cut short when she kicked him in the gut. He staggered back against container seventeen, with his injured shoulder taking the brunt of the impact. Steve could feel something heat up deep in the damaged muscle, and he suspected he was bleeding internally. A moment later he had to duck as she swung her claws, determined to take his head off. He rolled under her arm and grabbed hold of a mooring loop.

“Laura!” Steve shouted. He hoped it would get some sort of response, even if only _who the hell is Laura?_

She didn't react at all. Maybe she couldn't hear him over the wind.

Steve tried again. “ _Laura_!” he roared.

This time, something happened. Her fist, raised to strike, hesitated. Her pupils constricted a little, and she blinked. She had heard the name and understood it. Encouraged, Steve extended a hand to her.

“Laura,” he said.

Suddenly, her face hardened, and her fist plowed forward. Steve barely got out of the way in time to avoid the blow, and it left a dent in the mooring loop.

“You don't get to call me that!” the woman shrieked, and dived at him, pinning him to the anchor spool. He could feel bruises forming in his back where he was shoved against the huge links of the anchor chain. “Who are you? Are you one of the men who took Sarah away?”

Steve struggled, trying to get her off of him. She did seem more lucid now, but _lucid and still trying to kill him_ was not what he'd hoped for. Trying to pry her fingers off his neck was like trying to pull a statue apart. He was seeing spots.

Then there was a groaning sound from above them. Sam had continued working on the clamps, and the remaining ones were making noise as the force of the ocean and the weight of the container tested their strength. When it came free, it would slide forward, running both of them over.

Steve summoned everything he had, braced himself against the winch, and shoved Χ23 backwards with both legs. She went flying and hit the doors of container seventeen. A moment later, the ship crested a wave and began to slide down into the next trough. Χ23 hadn't had enough time to recover yet – she fell forward again and slammed bodily into Steve, knocking him over the spool and off his feet. The two of them were left dangling, holding on to opposite sides of the spool, as the ship dropped.

This wave was steeper than most. Sam lost his grip on the top of the container, rolled off, and landed on the forecastle. Steve couldn't catch him – he had to hang on with both arms or he'd slide overboard himself. Instead, he swung his legs around for Sam to grab as he rolled by. Now both men were holding on for dear life while Χ23 hung from the other side of the spool, only a couple of feet away.

There was another groan of tormented metal from container seventeen. Χ23 had struck the doors so hard she'd almost caved them in. What was this woman _made_ of?

“I've got an idea!” Sam shouted. “Get me back up there and keep her down here!”

The ship finally made it to the bottom of the wave and then began heading up the next crest. Everyone clung to the equipment as gravity seemed to reverse itself, leaving them hanging _towards_ the cargo instead of away from it. As soon as he could, Sam let go and slid towards the containers. He braced himself against number seventeen with his feet and began trying to open the door. The locking mechanism, however, appeared to be stuck.

Steve thought fast. He knew _he_ was strong enough to break the lock, he just needed a tool to do it. If he'd had his shield he would have used that, but without it the nearest thing available was the anchor hanging from the chain. Unfortunately, the anchor was on the other side of the spool, and that was where Χ23 was.

He went for it anyway. She responded by kicking him in the face. Steve could feel something inside his nose go 'crunch' and he tasted blood, but shook it off as best he could and cranked the windlass, unwinding the chain far enough to reach the container. Χ23 came at him again. For a split second Steve couldn't move – how he could he be _thinking_ of hitting this tiny woman with a ship anchor? But he couldn't think of it that way. She'd recovered from everything else they'd thrown at her – she would recover from this, too, and he had to find _some_ way of keeping her down.

So he swung the anchor into her ribs, knocking her off her feet. She fell, bleeding, and hit her head against the mooring loop. This seemed to knock her out, at least temporarily, but Steve didn't have time to check. Instead, he slid down the deck and swung the anchor again, putting one prong of it right through the doors of container seventeen. When he pulled it out again, it had left a long tear in the steel. From there, Steve threw the anchor aside and tore the doors apart with his bare hands. Sam came to help him, pulling out the broken locking rod.

In a split second a million doubts rushed through his mind. What if the crew had lied or made a mistake? What if this were the wrong box, and they had to start all over again?

The two men opened the doors and blinked into the darkness for a moment, and Steve found to his immense relief that the container was full of whitish plastic bags hanging from racks, each about half-full of dark red liquid. This was it: the samples from Stan Reeves and Evan Grant, and maybe the other dead clones as well.

Part of him felt like he should say something – these were parts of corpses, after all. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust... “water to water,” he murmured. Leaving the doors open, he took Sam's hand and swung both of them over to cling to the locking rods on the next container.

Χ23 was starting to come to. She shook her head and looked up, just as the ship seemed to pause for a moment at the top of the wave. For a moment her eyes met Steve's. This time they were not blank and empty – there was a thinking person behind them now, and that person wasn't sure what had just happened. She was confused. She was scared.

Then the prow of the ship dropped down the other side of the wave, and all any of them could do was hold on as the racks of blood and marrow fell out of container seventeen like dominoes. Some of the bags split when they hit the cold forecastle, leaving a dark red smear as if a body had been dragged across the deck. Χ23 got splattered with blood as she clung to the mooring loop. Other bags stayed in their clips as the racks slid out of the container and bounced off the winches and windlasses, sending them flying over the railing. Then the ship hit the trough again, and a huge spray of salt water leaped up to soak everything. Sam and Steve had to close their eyes.

When they opened them, container seventeen was empty. The blood on the forecastle had been washed away and so, apparently, had X23.

Steve's first, gut reaction was that they ought to look for her. There'd been a human being in there somewhere, under layers of suppression and brainwashing. He'd seen it in her eyes when she saw the contents of container seventeen coming at her, and heard it in her voice when she'd told him he wasn't allowed to call her by her name. Could she swim? Could she drown? Maybe she was clinging to the railing, trying desperately not to fall into the ocean. Or would somebody else come looking for her, maybe whoever Natasha or Toby had apparently fired at on the bridge...

That thought jerked Steve back to the larger situation: there were people on this ship to whom he owed far more concern than he did to X23. “Are you okay?” he asked Sam, as the two of them began to pick themselves up.

“I'll live!” Sam shouted back, shivering in his wet clothes. His lip was bloodied and he was going to be scraped and bruised. “Let's get the hell off this boat!”

They helped each other climb back up on top of the containers – and as soon as they got there, they saw Natasha. She was on her knees on the balcony outside the bridge, clinging to the railing with her bad arm and waving with her good one. Steve's stomach dropped. How long had she been there? He had no idea how much time the struggle on the forecastle had taken. Natasha might have been trying to call for help for the past fifteen or twenty minutes, and he and Sam would have had no idea.

Where were Megan and Toby?

Maybe it was just the fear of what they would find when they arrived, but making their way back to the bridge seemed like an even longer and more difficult trip than getting to the prow had been in the first place. It was definitely a more _painful_ one. Steve's shoulder was swelling up to the point that his shirt was becoming uncomfortable, and Sam tried not to show it, but he was moving as if his right leg hurt him. Natasha helped pull them up onto the balcony as best she was able.

“Did you dump the cargo?” she yelled.

“Yeah!” Steve said. “It's gone! What happened up here?”

Sam opened the bridge door and they all stumbled inside so they could talk without shouting over the weather. The first thing Steve noticed was the sound of wind whistling in somewhere – when he looked around, he spotted a bullet hole in the glass of the windows, with a spiderweb of cracks around it. There was a second hole, this one still smoking a little, in the middle of a screen on the far console. That led Steve's eyes down, to the pool of blood on the floor.

Four members of the _Santo Eust_ _á_ _quio_ 's crew were either unconscious or dead, including Captain Correio. The three others were sitting up, looking dazed or in shock, applying pressure to bullet wounds using their own clothing or gauze pulled from a desperately understocked first aid kit. Megan and Toby were on the floor, too – she on her back and he on his belly. Neither appeared to be injured, but neither was moving.

Sam took this in, too, and both men looked to Natasha for an explanation.

“Finster,” she said, kneeling down by one of the sailors – the one who'd first recognized Steve – to help him with an injury to his side. Steve swallowed. A bullet there had probably penetrated the intestine. Even if they staunched the bleeding, the man would be dead of infection in a few hours.

“Which one?” asked Sam. They knew of two living ones.

“The kid from the parking lot in Cheyenne Mountain,” said Natasha. “He had an older woman with him, I figure she must have been Dr. Kinney. The captain saw them first and said, _I told you and your sister to stay below_. Megan and Toby tried to intervene, but he...” she reached up and snapped her fingers in front of her face. “And said _Dornröschen_ , and they just collapsed. Like they had a kill switch.” She shivered. Clearly something about that idea hit her very close to him. “Then Finster went for me. I could have taken care of him, but the captain and sailors thought they ought to protect me because I'm a _woman_ ,” she said bitterly.

Steve didn't know how to reply to that. There was nothing he could say that would comfort her, not when four people were already dead and two more dying. Instead, he knelt down next to Toby and gave him a gentle shake. He did not respond. Steve tried Megan, and got the same lack of reaction. Both fallen clones were warm, both had a pulse, but both were completely lifeless.

“They won't wake up,” Natasha said. “I tried.”

“ _Dornröschen_ ,” said Sam. “Sounds German.”

“It means _thorny little rose_ ,” said Natasha. “It's the name of the princess in the Brothers Grimm version of _Sleeping Beauty_.”

Steve swallowed hard. He could feel that _anger_ again – the hot, thick, bubbling, molten lava kind, ready to explode out of him. The people who'd created the clones hadn't thought they deserved names, and now they apparently didn't think they deserved any autonomy to rebel. Like a malfunctioning computer that wouldn't do what he wanted, Finster had simply _turned them off_.

That wasn't a good metaphor. When people rebooted a computer it was in the hope that the machine would function differently when it came back on. When Toby and Megan woke up, would they still be _Toby_ and _Megan_? Or did they have some kind of reset where they would come back as blank slates, without all those annoying bugs like opinions and personalities?

If there'd been a footstool handy, Steve would have broken another window – but venting his rage was going to have to wait. The crew needed medical help immediately, or those who were still alive wouldn't be for much longer. The clones, too, if any help were even possible for them. “Get on the radio,” Steve ordered, not caring who obeyed. “Call Roger and get him to pick us up. Where's the nearest city?”

“Probably Belem, Brazil,” said Natasha. “There's an infirmary at the airport, and the Ums Tapanã hospital is close.”

While Steve and Natasha tried to help the crew with their injuries, Sam got on the radio and found the channel they'd agreed on. “Roger,” he said. “This is the team on the _Santo Eust_ _á_ _quio_! Come back?”

The radio hissed with static.

Rooting through the first aid kit, Steve found a bottle of aspirin. The colours and logo were easy to recognize even when the text was in Portuguese, but he didn't know if it could be safely given to people who'd lost so much blood. The youngest had been shot in the gut. The second, a man with a shaved head and a lot of tattoos, had a bullet wound in his upper arm that looked like it had nicked the brachial artery. He would die of blood loss without a transfusion. The third, the old man who'd been checking the ropes when he'd seen the quinjet overhead, had been grazed in the side of the head. The bullet had torn away part of his ear and left a deep, bloody gash in his scalp that showed the bone, but he would be most likely to survive if he could avoid infection.

“Roger,” Sam repeated. “This is Sam Wilson. Falcon. We've dumped the cargo and we need a lift.”

Natasha got up and went outside to see if she could spot the quinjet.

There was nothing more Steve could do for the living, so he went to look at the dead. Two had been shot in the head – one in the eye and one just above it. The others had each taken a bullet to the neck, demolishing the larynx and trachea. Finster didn't necessarily have very good aim, but he knew where the vital spots were. The three survivors had only escaped a deadly shot by inches if that.

“ _Answer_ me, you little son of a bitch!” Sam snarled into the radio.

Natasha came back in. “He's gone,” she announced.

Steve raised his head. “Finster?” he asked.

“No, Finster and Dr. Kinney left in the lifeboat after killing the crew,” said Natasha. “It's Roger. He's gone. No sign of the jet anywhere.”

Sam hung up the radio handset, rather violently. “He ditched us!”

“What?” asked Steve. That couldn't be right – Roger had _told_ him to trust them! “Why would he do that?”

“Probably because he's an asshole,” said Sam. “He's been as asshole since we bailed his skinny butt out of jail – why should that change now?”

Steve probably should have been angry about that, too – but instead he was just _confused_. Roger was... Roger was _Steve_. Sort of. He was a small, angry version of Steve, one who had no outlet for his frustration with himself and the world... but he couldn't be _that_ different from his original, could he?

Yes, Steve realized, he could. SHIELD had tried to create a second Peggy, but Megan didn't have the stomach to fire a gun at somebody or even to eat meat. They'd tried to create a second Stark, but Toby was modest and polite and would rather build cameras than missiles. And they'd tried to create a second Steve, but Roger was an addict and a criminal who'd said he wanted to go to Rio de Janeiro to party and get high, and apparently had decided to do so with or without any company – damn him!

“Now what?” asked Steve. Somehow he didn't quite trust himself to decide what they should do next.

“We have to call for help,” said Natasha. “Or if you don't want to do that,” she said, looking pointedly at Steve, “we have to bring the ship into port ourselves. It's eight hundred miles to Belem.”

“That'll take at least a day and a half,” said Sam. Two of the injured crew members would probably be dead before that.

Steve felt sick. He hadn't wanted to trust the authorities in the US, never mind in South America where the governments might still be full of HYDRA infiltrators. But if they didn't trust _somebody_ , innocent people would die. People were _already_ dead who might not have been if he'd taken up General Cordero's offer of a plane, or asked Stark to come along and help. At the same time, they might well be serving themselves to HYDRA on the proverbial silver platter.

For a long, aching moment he wrestled with the decision, then sighed and gave up. “Call for help,” he said to Natasha. “You're the one who speaks Portuguese. Sam, help me make these guys comfortable.”

The crew's bunks were a couple of levels down, in bare, narrow little rooms with beige walls and unshaded bulbs hanging from the ceiling for light. Steve and Sam tucked the three injured men into their bunks as gently as they could, while Natasha made the distress call. Once there was no more they could realistically do for the crew, they turned to their _own_ injuries. These were nowhere near life threatening, but plenty bad enough all the same.

Sam was a bit battered, but his worst injury was to his right foot, which was bruised and swollen where it had gotten caught in between two of the cargo containers are he worked on the clamps. It didn't seem to be broken, but he'd be limping for a few days. Steve's back was badly beat up from his counter with the anchor chain, and his shoulder was still hot and swollen, but those would heal. More urgent were the injuries to his hands, which he'd cut up in wrenching the doors open. Sam cleaned them up with peroxide and wrapped bandages around them, but the worst of the cuts would need stitches to heal properly.

“You won't be doing anything delicate for a week or so,” Sam observed.

“I guess my needlework is just going to have to wait,” Steve quipped in reply.

Then there were the two clones. Steve and Sam had carried Megan and Toby to bed, and both were still unresponsive and limp. Steve snapped his fingers in front of Megan's face, like a hypnotist waking a subject from a trance, but it did nothing. How long would they stay like this, he wondered. Was there a time limit, or would they remain unconscious until somebody said the right command?

If there were a wakeup word, what would it be? Falling asleep was _Dornröschen – Sleeping Beauty_. Maybe waking up would be... “ _Wahrliebekuss_ ,” Steve tried – _true love's kiss_.

Megan didn't move. Lying there perfectly still and relaxed, her face looked so much like Peggy's that Steve wanted to turn away. Oddly, their state of repose had the exact opposite effect on Toby. With his face quiet, he no longer looked much like Stark at all.

“ _Drei Feen_ ,” Steve guessed. _Three fairies_. That didn't work either. Neither did _Spinnwirtel_ or _Schönenprinzen_. Would the right command be from a different fairy tale? Or was it something known only to Fenstermacher and his allies, something no outsider could guess?

Natasha rejoined them a few minutes later. “The navy is sending a helicopter,” she said. “I just told them the ship had been attacked at sea and people were injured. They'll want to ask questions once we're back on land, but at least the crew will get help.”

“Yeah, thanks,” sighed Steve.

Sam put a comforting hand on Natasha's back. She never _talked_ about it, but Steve had noticed that Natasha often went out of her way on missions to make sure civilians weren't hurt. She'd said she could have taken care of Finster, but with Toby and Megan both down, and her with only one working arm, it was no wonder the crew had tried to intervene. Now she would blame herself, and Steve didn't know what he could say to help her. He'd tried telling her, in the past, that he considered her a good person, but it had never seemed to assuage her conscience even at the best of times. What good could it possibly do now, when only yesterday they'd argued over the concept of trust?

“How are Toby and Megan?” she asked.

“Down for the count,” said Sam. “I think you could stick pins in them and they still wouldn't move.”

“I tried a couple of code words,” Steve added, “but it didn't help.” He sighed. “Maybe I should kiss them.” This was meant to be a grim joke, but it didn't sound very funny, and nobody laughed.

“In the non-Disney version, didn't she have to sleep for a hundred years?” asked Sam.

Steve hung his head – then sat upright again, his heart beating a little faster. Could _that_ be the answer? He leaned over Megan and waved a hand in front of her face. “ _Jahrhundert_ ,” he said, and held his breath.

Forever seemed to pass... and then Megan's eyes opened. She frowned, blinking at the ceiling and then began to sit up, only to make a distressed noise and quickly lie down again.

“It worked!” Sam exclaimed.

Steve nearly slid off his chair in relief, and only bothered to stop himself because he knew he wouldn't like it when his aching back hit the floor. At least _somebody_ was going to be all right today – at least he wouldn't have the clones' deaths on his hands as well as the crew's. He quickly crossed to the other bunk to wake Toby. “ _Jahrhundert_!” he repeated, snapping his fingers in front of the young man's face.

Toby opened his eyes at once. For a moment he frowned at Steve, then reached up to touch his own face. “Where are my glasses?” he asked.

“Here.” Sam retrieved them from the end of the bed and handed them to him.

Natasha leaned over Megan. “Are you all right?” she asked, with her eyes suspiciously shiny. She, too, Steve realized, was all but melting with relief that there was _someone_ she hadn't failed.

“I'm okay. Just a head rush.” Megan scrubbed at her eyes with her knuckles, while Toby slowly sat up and then immediately leaned forward, holding his head in his hands while waiting for the dizziness to pass.

“Put your head between your knees,” Sam advised him. “Get your brain below your heart. Let gravity help.”

“What happened?” asked Megan.

“What do you remember?” Natasha wanted to know.

Megan frowned, thinking about it. “One of the Fenstermacher clones came in with Dr. Kinney. He had a gun, so I went to take it away from him.” Her brow furrowed with concentration, but then she shook her head. “That's it. Then I woke up here.”

Sam looked at Toby, who was rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Same,” he said, “except I was just going to shoot him. Now I feel...” Toby grimaced. “I've never actually _had_ a hangover, but I've had people describe them to me, and it sounds as if it feels like this. What _did_ happen?”

“You two have a kill switch,” said Natasha. Her voice was quiet and emotionless, the tone she used when delivering news even _she_ thought was bad. “Fenstermacher or one of your handlers conditioned you with a trigger word that puts you into a coma.”

“What?” This time, Megan did sit up, only to sway and have to grab Natasha for support. “So he just knocked us out and you were all alone with him?”

That had been their plan, hadn't it? Toby and Megan back up Natasha because she was injured. In retrospect, it hadn't been a very good plan at all... but how could they have known?

“The crew tried to protect me,” said Natasha, staring fixedly at the wall so she wouldn't have to meet anyone's eyes. “Four of them are dead and the other three are dying. Finster and Kinney got away in the lifeboat.”

“And Ch... and Laura was washed overboard when Sam and I dumped the clone material,” said Steve. He'd almost said _X23_ , but he didn't want to refer to her by a number in front of Megan and Toby. Not when they knew _their_ numbers.

“We've called for help,” said Natasha. “The navy is sending a helicopter.”

“Fuck,” whined Megan, holding her head. Steve didn't complain this time – swearing was apparently just how she handled emotional extremes. He couldn't fault her for her coping mechanism when he was the one who'd thrown a stool out a window last Saturday afternoon. “I'm sorry!”

“Don't be sorry,” said Natasha. “Either of you. This is probably something that's been in you since childhood. You didn't know about it, so neither did we. If he had, we could have taken it into account in our planning, but we didn't, so we couldn't. We know about it now.” She glanced at Steve. “Don't apologize.”

Steve heard her words, but he also understood that she was telling him and Sam something different from what she was telling the clones. Now that they _did_ know about the trigger word, Toby and Megan had become a liability. There was no way to tell what other commands might be lurking in their subconscious minds. Toby and Megan _probably_ couldn't be turned into single-minded killers like X23 or the Winter Soldier – if that were possible, Finster would probably have done it. But the two clones were no good as allies if their enemies could turn them on and off at will. The blood samples were destroyed, but Steve and his friends still had to find Fenstermacher and bring him back to the States for justice. Toby and Megan could not help them with that.

“Is there anything we can do about it?” Megan asked. “If somebody put it in, it's gotta be possible to take it out, right?”

“That's right,” Natasha agreed, “but how to do that will depend on what they did in the first place. We'll need more information before we can try.”

Megan nodded miserably. Toby, however, seemed more interested in something else. “The navy is coming?” he asked. “Did something happen to Roger?”

Steve sighed. “That's the other thing,” he said.


	13. The Uatumã

The Brazilian Navy had promised to send help immediately, but of course nothing could really be _immediate_ over the sorts of distances involved at sea. It took over an hour for the rescue to arrive. While they waited, the sailor with the wounded arm died, and the one with the gut shot developed a high fever and began mumbling to himself in Portuguese. The one with the grazed skull fell asleep, and nobody wanted to try to wake him for fear he wouldn't respond.

Sitting silently and watching them suffer, Steve realized he didn't know any of their names. The only member of the crew who'd identified himself earlier had been Captain Coreio, and he was already dead. The others were in no position to answer if asked.

Finally, the thunder of rotors announced the arrival of two red and white navy helicopters, which let down lines with harnesses and stretchers to lift the injured from the ship. The seas were still rough, which made this a difficult and dangerous task – luckily, a couple of the rescue crew spoke good English, and Steve and Sam were able to assist without needing Natasha to do too much translating. Megan and Toby tried to help, but both were still feeling sick and dizzy, and on the heaving, slippery decks they could barely stand. The two injured men went on the first helicopter with Sam and Megan, while Steve, Toby, and Natasha went on the second.

“Are we going to Belem?” Natasha shouted over the rotor.

“No, Ma'am!” one of the crew replied. “We are going to the  _ Uatumã _ ! There are hospital facilities on board, and it is closer than the mainland!”

“What about the dead?” asked Steve. He pointed to the bobbing shape of the  _ Santo Eust _ _ á _ _ quio _ below them.

“The navy will take care of them!” the man promised. “A ship will come to tow them into port!”

Once the helicopter doors were shut, relative quiet descended. Steve watched as the  _ Santo Eust _ _ á _ _ quio _ shrank to a bobbing dot in the ocean below them. When it finally vanished over the glittering blue horizon, he shut his eyes and sighed. Technically, that had been a successful mission: they'd dumped the clone material and stopped Fenstermacher from creating an army of super-soldiers. At the same time, five innocent civilians were dead and two more were dying, Finster and the HYDRA scientists were still at large and X23 was drowned or lost at sea. They'd lost Stark's jet and they could no longer count on Megan and Toby. It was hard to feel like they'd accomplished anything under the weight of all that.

“I should have known,” said Toby miserably.

“You couldn't have,” Natasha told him, for what had to be the half-dozenth time. She didn't sound impatient, though – to Steve she sounded almost  _ motherly _ , as if she were fully prepared to just keep saying it until the clones believed it. “They were probably very careful to keep you from finding out. If you knew about it, you might have been able to fight it.”

Toby shook his head. “Not about that – about  _ Roger _ . He's actually done this before. When we left SHIELD back in May, him, Dave, and Lucinda all went together. I got a phone call from Dave saying they'd stopped for gas and Roger took off with the car while the others were getting snacks.” He scowled. “We never did get around to asking him where he thought he was going.”

“Well, we know where he thinks he's going now,” said Steve. “The Carnival in Rio starts tomorrow, doesn't it?” He could vaguely remember seeing something about that online.

“Friday the thirteen,” Natasha agreed. “Appropriately enough.”

That didn't bother Steve – he wasn't superstitious, and he didn't think their luck could really get that much worse. “If we can catch up with him, maybe we can get the plane back,” he said. “Assuming he doesn't crash it flying drunk or something.”  
“He won't.” Toby snorted. “He'll sell it and then he'll blow the money on drugs and venereal disease. That's what he did with Lucinda's car.” He shook his head. “This time I'm kicking his ass. Megan's not allowed to stop me.”

“I'll hold him down for you,” Natasha promised.

* * *

The NAe  _ Uatumã _ was an elderly Clemenceau-class aircraft carrier, which had been purchased from France. Medical staff were waiting as the two helicopters landed on the flight deck. The injured sailors were unloaded first, as they needed the most urgent treatment. Then Steve and Sam had to sit and have their injuries re-checked, re-cleaned by the medics. One doctor stitched up the injuries to Steve's hands while another wrapped ace bandages around Sam's foot, and a nurse double-checked Natasha's shoulder and gave Megan and Toby a once-over.

Natasha translated the man's verdict on the clones' condition: “he says you seem disoriented but you'll probably recover after a good night's sleep,” she told them.

Toby nodded, while Megan just sighed. Steve couldn't blame them: if something like that had happened to  _ him _ , he would never have wanted to sleep again. He would have been too afraid that he would never wake up.

“ _ Desculpe _ ,” a voice said – a group of sailors had been standing back watching the medics work, and now that everybody was patched up, one of them had stepped forward.

Natasha got up. “ _ Podemos ajudá-lo? _ ” she asked, and then passed on the sailor's reply: “he says if we're ready, the captain would like to meet us.”

Steve nodded. “Lead the way.”

The man escorted them below decks and into a nicely furnished office, where he introduced them to the commander of the ship. This was a very tall woman with a masculine jawline and a sharp nose, which gave her an eagle-like expression. Although she must have been nearly sixty, her hair was still black except for a streak of white at each temple, which had been woven artfully into the French braid that hung down her back.

“Captain.” Steve offered her a hand. “I'm Captain Steve Rogers.”

She accepted the hand and gave it a firm shake. “Captain Maria-Luisa da Silva,” she said. “So it is true, then – Captain America is on my ship! I have seen your exploits on the news. I would say welcome to Brazil,” she added, “but it seems that you are not here for pleasure. Please, sit down.” She gestured to the chairs in front of her desk. As the group seated themselves, she continued, “my men have tried to tell me what happened aboard the  _ Santo Eust _ _ á _ _ quio _ , but no two versions agree. Perhaps you can help with some of the confusion.”

Steve felt a by-now-familiar pang of mistrust. How did they know that Captain da Silva wasn't in HYDRA's pocket, herself? But he  _ had _ to stop thinking like that – thinking like that was why they were here, and why most of the  _ Santo Eust _ _ á _ _ quio _ 's crew were dead. Steve had trusted the wrong people, and refused to trust the right ones. But how was he supposed to know the difference?

It didn't matter anyway. They were on Captain da Silva's ship, and with their assortment of injuries that put them more or less completely in her power. They had no choice but to trust her.

“Well,” Steve said, “it actually started with something that happened over seventy years ago.”

Telling the story to Captain da Silva took less time than it had to tell it to Agent Fa. At Agent Fa's house, everybody else had kept wanting to weigh in – now they were all too tired, too upset, or in too much pain to interrupt. Steve did his best to emphasize that what had happened on the bridge had not been Natasha's fault, or Toby and Megan's. It had been his, for putting them in that situation to begin with.

The Captain listened quietly, but with growing concern on her face. “It is true,” she admitted, “this part of the world has been a haven for Nazis in the last seventy years, and we have been unable to do very much about it. We have too many other troubles.” She got up and began pacing back and forth behind her desk. “Unfortunately, if Dr. Fenstermacher is operating out of Argentina, it will be  _ their _ authorities you must go to for help. I will certainly warn Admira Ferreira and President Roussef of this threat, but they cannot do very much to interfere in the affairs of another country.”

“I understand,” said Steve – General Cordero in Colorado Springs had said something similar. “If you can drop us off on the mainland, that's all we really need.” A niggling little voice in the back of his head reminded him that even that was dangerous. He'd turned down Cordero's offer of a plane because planes could be sabotaged. This time, he did his best to ignore it.

“I can have somebody fly you to Belem,” Captain da Silva said. “Is that not where you wanted to go?”

Steve grimaced. “Actually, believe it or not, we have to go to Rio de Janiero. That's where we think the sixth member of our party is. If we can catch up with him, maybe we can get our own plane back.” Stark's plane, actually, that he'd implicitly asked them to take good care of –  _ take her through the car wash before you bring her back _ , he'd said. And then Steve had lost it, by trusting Roger.

“Of course,” said Captain da Silva.

* * *

They spent the night on the  _ Uatumã. _ This time no discussion was necessary: everybody was too exhausted, hungry, and hurt to move on immediately, and even if they hadn't been, the beginning of Carnival meant it would have been impossible to find a hotel room within miles of Rio de Janiero. Captain da Silva invited them to dine with her in her private quarters, but nobody had much of an appetite, especially the clones. Toby visibly forced himself to eat, looking as if every mouthful were a herculean effort, while Megan cut her food into very small pieces and moved it around on her plate to make it look like she'd eaten more than she had.

Midway through the meal, Captain da Silva's first officer called her away from the table. She excused herself and stepped out into the hall to speak to him. When she returned a few minutes later, her expression was grim. Steve wanted to know what had happened, but didn't want to ask for fear it was private. It might concern the running of the ship, and have nothing to do with the HYDRA situation whatsoever.

Once again, Steve couldn't be that lucky. Captain da Silva sat down and spread her napkin in her lap, then looked at him.

“Captain Rogers,” she said. “First Officer Cortes has informed me that a fishing boat reported picking up a man and two women in a life raft, answering the descriptions your party gave of the people who escaped the _ Santo Eustáquio _ .”

Steve sat up a little straighter as he realized that was  _ good _ news. “Are they coming here?” he asked.  _ Three _ people meant that X23 was still alive, and now the Brazilian navy would have Finster and Dr. Kinney in custody. Hopefully, one of the trio would be able to tell them where Fenstermacher was hiding.

But Captain da Silva shook her head. “No. The report was cut off, and the boat has been silent since. Cortes has sent the helicopters to search at the vessel's last reported position, but having heard your story, he expects they will find very little.”

Steve's heart sank all over again. He looked at his companions and saw similar disappointment on their faces, as well. When the HYDRA operatives had realized that their rescuers were reporting them to the navy, they must have decided to commandeer the boat. Steve and Natasha had each barely held their own against X23. A fishing crew, on a small boat and with no training, would not have stood a chance.

“Thanks,” Steve managed.

“Please keep us informed,” Natasha added.

“We will,” da Silva promised. “Tomorrow morning, Cortes has volunteered to personally fly you to Rio de Janiero. I'm sure the police there will render any assistance they can in finding your companion and your aircraft. Unfortunately, during Carnival, their hands tend to be very full.”

Steve could only imagine. “Thank you,” he repeated.

* * *

After dinner, most of the group went back to the guest cabins that had been assigned to them. These were comfortable, if not particularly luxurious: the colour scheme was beige, the walls bare, and the furniture itself very plain and practical. Natasha sat on one of the bottom bunks to do more of the shoulder exercises Megan had prescribed for her, although this time Megan herself was not present to supervise – Captain da Silva had mentioned that the crew kept a hyacinth macaw as a mascot of sorts, so Megan had gone to the mess hall to look for it. Sam, too, had wandered off, and Steve couldn't blame him. The rest of them were all is dismal moods right now, and Sam had every right to look for some more pleasant company.

Toby had seated himself at the room's small desk, taken the shade off the lamp, and absorbed himself in disassembling and re-assembling the sighting device he'd made from the laser pointer and the lenses out of his camera ring. Steve realized he'd never gotten to use it – Finster had knocked the clones out before Toby could take a shot.

“What's the range on that thing?” he asked.

Toby shrugged. “I can't really design it to specifications when I'm building it out of junk,” he said.

“Stark built his first Iron Man suit out of junk, and it worked fine,” said Steve.

“I'm _not_ Tony Stark,” said Toby bitterly. “I'll know the range when I've tested it. If I ever _get_ to test it.”

“It's not your fault,” Natasha told him again. It was like a Pavlovian response at this point, Steve thought. Somebody else blamed themselves, and Natasha automatically tried to tell them otherwise.

“No, it's not,” Toby agreed bitterly. “We can't help it. We were _made_ to be failures.”

Natasha got up and turned the swivel chair he was sitting in, forcing him to look at her. “ _ I _ was made to be a murderess,” she said, “but I don't let that define me. Before you are anybody's employee, creation, or even their clone, you are your own person – first, last, and always.”

For a moment, Toby managed to look her in the eye, but the list of people who could hold the Black Widow's gaze for long was very short, and Toby Strong wasn't on it. He turned away, back towards his camera parts. Natasha waited a few more seconds, in case he wanted to continue to the conversation, but he clearly did not. She turned, and walked out of the room.

“Be right back,” Steve said to Toby, and followed.

He found Natasha just outside the cabin door, leaning against the wall with her arms folded across her chest, staring at the place where the floor and wall met as if her gaze could burn a hole in it. Steve opened his mouth to greet her, but she cut him off.

“I know,” she said.

It took Steve a moment to figure out what she was referring to, but then he realized: she knew that he knew she had  _ lied _ . Natasha's past  _ did _ define her: it always had, and it always would.

“They're still young enough to define  _ themselves _ ,” she added. “They just need to know it's possible.”

Youth had nothing to do with it – Natasha herself was only thirty-one. What the clones had that she didn't was a clean conscience. Natasha would spend the rest of her life trying to atone for the things she'd done while never actually  _ allowing _ herself to find any resolution.

“I'm going to fine Megan and Sam,” Natasha said. “Cortes wanted to leave early tomorrow. We all need our sleep.”

Steve didn't think any of them were going to  _ sleep _ any better than they'd  _ eaten _ , but he knew they had to try. “Megan was going to the mess hall,” he said. “I think Sam was, too.”

Sure enough, at the far end of the mess hall was a large cage, which was home to an enormous blue parrot. Goji had been tiny enough to sit on a finger, but this bird looked like it could have bitten one off with its huge hooked beak. Close to, however, Steve could see that it looked ratty and bedraggled, as if it were molting or just not very healthy. Megan was offering it a Brazil nut out of a brown paper bag, while Sam leaned on the wall beside the cage with a bottle of beer in his hand, watching.

“Be careful,” Sam said, pointing to a sign taped to the cage. This read  _ CUIDADO! EU MORDO! _ Above a childlike drawing of the parrot with angry eyebrows and a crying stick figure. Apparently the parrot liked to bite.

Megan wasn't worried, though. “He's fine,” she said, and offered the nut again. The parrot took it from her fingers with one claw and held it there so it could crack it with its beak. “See?” she said. “He's just been poked and prodded and teased by too many people who don't know fuck-all about birds. It's no wonder he doesn't trust anybody.”

The parrot broke the nut open and began delicately picking out the meat.  _ Mais um? _ it asked.

Sam smiled, then looked up to acknowledge Steve and Natasha's arrival. “How are you guys doing?” he asked. The question was mostly directed at Steve, although he thought Natasha needed reassurance more than he did.

“We're coping,” he replied. This was accurate enough: they weren't coping very  _ well _ with any of this, but they were  _ coping _ . “You?”

“Coping,” Sam agreed. He knew exactly what Steve had actually meant. “I think Megan's gonna be okay now she's got a bird to talk to,” he added. It was gentle teasing, an attempt to make everyone smile – the things Sam was best at.

“Birds and I understand one another,” said Megan, and spoke gently to the parrot again. “How long have you been cooped up in here, beautiful boy?” she asked. “You don't have room to spread your wings. I'm going to have to speak to Captain da Silva about this,” she said, talking to Sam again. “He can't stay here – look how stressed he is. Look at his feathers! He's so stressed he's tearing them out.”

The parrot finished the first nut and looked at her.  _ Mais um? _ it repeated.

Megan held up a nut. “Say please,” she ordered.

_ Mais um? _ The parrot cocked its head.  _ Por favor? _

“Better.” Megan gave it the nut.

“Are you _sure_ you have no superpowers?” asked Sam. “I think 'bird whisperer' might count.”

Natasha spoke up. “You know, I bet there's a preserve or someplace in Brazil where you could get a job. Maybe one of those sanctuaries, or a place that rehabilitates injured animals?”

Megan had her back to Steve, so he couldn't tell what _she_ thought of this suggestion, but _he_ liked it. A wildlife sanctuary would be a job where Megan could work with tropical birds and share her love of them with other people, while doing some good for the planet. That would be perfect for her. _Somebody_ needed to get out of this happy, and he liked the idea that it could be the clones, who seemed to have had very unhappy lives.

But all Megan said was, “I don't speak Portuguese.”

“You could learn,” Natasha said.

“Or I'm sure there's an American or British-run place that could take you,” Steve said. Americans loved helping other countries. It was too bad they were seldom so interested in helping _themselves_.

Megan just shrugged. Steve wondered if she'd been scolded for being more interested in birds than in espionage, or whichever of Peggy's skills they'd tried to develop in her. How often had she been compared to Peggy, or Toby to Stark, or any of the clones to their originals? How much had they been _told_ about these people they were supposed to become, but couldn't?

“Anyway, Cortes says we're leaving at seven tomorrow,” said Natasha. “I thought we should all turn in.”

“I can go for that,” Sam agreed. “I haven't been this bushed since...” he stopped and glanced at Steve. The rest of the sentence was probably going to be some reference to the Fall of SHIELD, but he didn't want to make Megan even more unhappy by bringing that up.

“I guess,” Megan agreed reluctantly. She wadded up the bag of nuts and put it in her jacket pocket.

 _Mais um_? the bird asked her.

“Maybe next time,” she told it.

They returned to their cabin, and found that Toby had cleaned up his stuff and was now rolled up in one of the bunks, apparently asleep. None of them had any pajamas to wear – their luggage had all been on the quinjet, and only Roger knew where it was now – so Captain da Silva had provided them with some large t-shirts with an image of the ship and the name _NAe Uatumã_ on them. These were baggy on everybody but merely large on Steve, and he wondered if they would have to give them back. T-shirts that weren't too tight for him were a rare commodity.

“Natasha,” said Megan quietly, “can you do me a favour?”

“What do you need?” Natasha asked. She never promised anyone anything unless she knew exactly what was expected of her, no matter how innocuous the request might seem.

“Tell me the trigger word. The one that puts us to sleep.”

Natasha gave that some thought. “I don't think I _can_ ,” she said. “It'll just knock you out again, and if you don't remember Finster saying it, you probably won't remember me doing so, either.”

“So write it down,” Megan said. “Toby said you told him if we knew what it was, we could fight it.”

“I said _maybe_ ,” Natasha corrected, but she seemed to think it was worth trying. She wrote the word out in block capitals on a page of yellow note paper, umlaut and all, and folded it in half before handing it to Megan. Megan took a deep breath and gritted her teeth, then unfolded the sheet. Steve got ready to catch her, but apparently just _reading_ the word didn't have any effect.

This appeared to give Megan the courage to try saying it out loud. “ _Dornröschen_ ,” she read, and then dropped the paper and clutched at her temples. “Oh! _Ow_!” she whined. Sam quickly grabbed her left arm and Steve her right, but although she swayed she remained standing. “I'm okay! I'm okay! I just suddenly have a splitting headache.”

Sam and Steve helped her to sit down on one of the bunks so she wouldn't collapse, while Natasha checked on Toby, who was still sleeping, and apparently _only_ sleeping. When she touched him, he mumbled something incoherent and rolled over.

“ _Dornröschen_ ,” Megan tried again, and then curled up and whimpered. “Ow, ow, ow... oh, _fuck_ , that hurts.”

“Then stop _saying_ it!” Sam told her.

“No, I have to... somebody _else_ say it now. I want to know if that helped,” Megan said.

Her face was pinched with pain, and for a moment Steve thought that just knocking her out might well be the kindest thing they could do – but she and Toby had both felt rotten after coming out of it earlier in the day, too. The trigger word was not going to get her the good night's sleep she needed.

It was Natasha, however, who talked her out of it. “No,” she said. “If it hurts that bad, hearing the word must make something misfire in your brain. If you do it too many times in one day, you might hurt yourself. You can't shrug off something that deep in your subconscious all in one day. Sam, find her some aspirin.”

“Yes, Ma'am,” said Sam, and got up to do so.

Steve made Megan lie down and helped her pull the blankets over her head so that the light wouldn't aggravate her migraine. He felt rather proud of her – learning the code word and trying to fight it despite causing pain to herself seemed like something Peggy would have done. Maybe there was more of Peggy in Megan than either of them had thought.

Yet he didn't dare tell her that. Being compared to Peggy wouldn't help her right now, not any more than being compared to Stark, building world-changing devices out of junk, had helped Toby. Natasha was, as usual, right: what they needed most of all was to be their own people, and Steve couldn't help them with that. He had no idea how to be his own person, either.

* * *

In the morning, they ate a quick breakfast of pastries and coffee, which reminded Steve of breakfasts he and the commandos had been offered by grateful people in various small towns in Europe. They learned that the gut shot sailor from the _Santo Eustáquio_ had died of septicemia in the night, but that the one with the grazed skull was stable, and would be taken to the mainland that afternoon so his grandchildren could take him home.

Steve probably should have felt better that at least _one_ of them was going to live, but he didn't. He kept thinking about the six who had died... six people who'd had nothing to do with any of this, dead because they'd been swept up in it and because Steve didn't know who to trust. Well done, Captain America.

After breakfast, they boarded a plane so Cortes could take them to Rio de Janeiro. The flight lasted about four hours, most of which went by in silence. There were plenty of things they could have talked about – plenty of things they probably _needed_ to talk about – but everybody was still too tired and unhappy for a proper conversation.

They really needed to plan, Steve thought. They were back where they'd been upon leaving Cheyenne Mountain, facing a future in which they knew _something_ had to be done, but exactly what that _was_ nobody had any idea. They didn't know what they would do when they arrived in the city. They didn't know how they would find Roger, or how they would get the jet back if he'd already sold it. If they _couldn't_ get it back, then they had no backup plan for reaching Buenos Aires, and either way they didn't know how, once they got there, they would find Fenstermacher's headquarters. They didn't even know for sure than Fenstermacher was in Argentina. As Toby had pointed out, Buenos Aires was right across the bay from Uruguay – Fenstermacher could be hiding there, or almost anywhere else on the continent. They just didn't _know_.

Megan was still unwell, occasionally rubbing at her temples in the effort to ease an ongoing headache. Toby seemed to have recovered physically but was sunk in self-pity, although not so much that he didn't also notice Megan's distress. Eventually he asked her if she were all right, and the two talked softly for a while, their voices barely audible over the background rumble of the airplane engines. Megan wrote something on a slip of paper and gave it to Toby – Steve didn't need to ask what it was, especially when Toby tucked it into a pocket without reading it.

At about noon they landed at the Santos Dumont Airport on Guanabara Bay. After the chilly wind and water of the Atlantic, stepping out into the hot, humid air of Rio de Janeiro was a shock. The atmosphere seemed so thick as to make it difficult to breathe. Steve could feel sweat start to bead on his back almost immediately, and quickly pulled off his hoodie as they descended the stairs to the tarmac.

“Thanks for the lift,” Steve said to Cortes, as everybody else shed jackets and sweaters. Megan was still wearing her Tinkerbell shirt, and Toby his _Psycho_ one – the crew of the _Uatumã_ had been kind enough to do laundry for them during the night.

“You're welcome,” Cortes replied, shaking his hand. “I have for you here... ah!” He pulled a folded pamphlet out of his pocket. “Bus schedule! If you cannot find your aircraft, you can go to Buenos Aires by bus. It is a nice ride, across the pampas much of the way.” He smiled. “ _Boa sorte_ , Captain America!”

The group stood back and watched him take off again, and then no more procrastination was possible. Steve stuffed the bus schedule into his pocket and took a deep breath – it was time to figure out what they were doing next. They had to find Roger, and figure out what he'd done with Stark's plane.

This wasn't going to be an easy task. Carnival was very much in the air, even at the airport. There were decorations up, posters and advertisements and pamphlets, and people in costumes ready to tell the hundreds of tourists where they could find food, lodging, transportation, and events. The crowd was phenomenal: people of every possible description, speaking every possible language. For once, Steve's party didn't have to worry about standing out. Among such numbers and variety, _anyone_ would blend in. Unfortunately, that would work for Roger as much as for them.

The easiest first step would be to find out if Roger had brought the quinjet to this particular airport. Natasha spoke to a number of staff members, giving a description that seemed to mean something like _a small, angry, tattooed man with a high-tech airplane_. The replies she got seemed to mean things like _I haven't heard about it_ or _I don't think so_ , and Natasha didn't bother asking any of them if they were sure. If Roger _had_ been here, people would _remember_ him.

On the plaza outside the terminal, they consulted a map of the city and considered their next move. The city itself was visible from there was a cluster of boxlike white apartment buildings towering over a screen of trees. “There are two other airports close to the city,” said Natasha, pointing them out. “There's Tom Jobim International on Governor's Island, and Jacarepagua over in Tijuca. If I had to land a small plane with little warning, I'd pick Jacarepagua because it's the least busy. I don't know if Roger knows that, though. He might have done his research, or he might have just seen a couple of movies and decided to go on a whim. We'll have to check both.”

Nobody had any better ideas, so they caught the shuttle bus to the Tom Jobin. This was closer than Jacarepagua, but still over an hour's ride. As the bus rumbled along a highway raised on pillars above the narrow, crowded streets of the city, Steve found himself feeling increasingly overwhelmed. How could they possibly find a single person in here? In written descriptions Rio's Carnival sounded like it was centered around a parade, like Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but from this vantage point the parade seemed to have spread out to fill the entire city. Through the bus windows Steve could see musicians, dancers, street performers, food vendors, souvenir-sellers, and tourists everywhere. Even from above, the noise and crowds seemed dense. Down among them, best friends could have passed within feet of each other, oblivious.

Toby must have been thinking the same thing. “You know,” he said, “on any other day of the year, if I wanted to find Roger in Rio, I'd just go to a police station and ask if they'd arrested any really obnoxious foreigners lately. But right now, this place is nothing _but_ obnoxious foreigners.”

Across the aisle from them, a group of loud young men were taking photographs out the window. Steve pulled the brim of his hat down, trying to hide his face – then thought again, and looked at Natasha.

Sam had come to the same conclusion at the same time. “Obnoxious foreigners _taking pictures_ ,” he said.

Natasha nodded and, for the first time that day, smiled. “We need an Apple Store.”


	14. Ambush

In the States, they would have stood a good chance of finding an Apple Store in the airport itself. In South America, such establishments were rarer, and after making some inquiries they learned that the nearest one was on the other side of the bay in Niterói. They had to settle instead for a little internet cafe, where Natasha bought everybody bubble tea and then asked the cashier for fifteen minutes of computer time as if it were an afterthought.

“There's this amusing video about a duck that you just _have_ to see,” she said, businesslike, as she sat down and plugged in her flash drive. “Gather over my shoulders to watch, and laugh when I say so.”

The rest of the party crowded around – doing so would also keep anyone else in the cafe from seeing what Natasha was doing as she entered search parameters.

“Can we also find out where the others were seen last?” asked Megan.

“Not right now,” said Natasha. “We're specifically searching for Roger. We can use his facial piercings to narrow things down, and confine ourselves to Rio and environs. Maybe once this is dealt with, we'll have time to look for the rest.”

The computer in Gainesville had needed some time to chew on its task before it found the two pictures of Toby. This one began pulling up images of Roger right away, and it seemed he'd had a rather busy evening. He'd first turned up at the Casa de España club, below the Corcovado. From there, he'd been spotted hailing a taxi. He must have been up all night moving through a series of street parties and, at one point, sitting on the shoulders of a six-foot samba queen so that he'd be able to see a parade. Finally, Natasha zeroed in on a picture that was tagged as having been taken outside the Vina del Mar Hotel.

“Everybody laugh at the duck,” she said.

They obliged her with their best fake laughter while she pulled the drive out again.

“The one from the hotel was only four minutes old,” Natasha said. She slipped the device back into her pocket and stood up. “He might still be there. Let's see if there's another bus.”

Only ten minutes after getting off it, they were back on the shuttle bus heading in the opposite direction. The driver seemed to recognize them, and gave them an odd look as they climbed on and dropped their coins in the box, but she didn't comment. At this time of year, Steve thought, she was probably used to the sight of lost and embarrassed Americans.

Now they had to actually descend into the  _ streets _ of Rio de Janeiro, and these were every bit as dense and confusing as they'd looked from above. The white-sided towers they'd seen from the airport plaza turned out to be a few newish buildings rising out of a sea of elderly ones in a knotted maze of streets that ran up and down the hillsides and never seemed to meet at right angles. There were parked motorcycles and multilingual graffiti everywhere, and the narrow streets were choked with celebrating crowds. More than anything else, it looked as if a huge Latin-themed party had broken out in all the shabbiest parts of New York City. Steve found himself looking over his shoulder, expecting to be mugged at any moment.

Despite a name that sounded like it went with pillars and gardens, the Vina Del Mar Hotel turned out to be a narrow little ten-story building, faced in warm gray limestone, hidden in a bend in one of the tiny, meandering streets. There were a few potted plants out front and an awning over the door, but otherwise it blended in with the densely-packed, slightly unkempt shops and apartments all around it. Judging by the prices it commanded, it must have been much nicer and more modern inside, but Steve and his companions never got through the front door. As they approached, a group of celebrating tourists came spilling out into the street. Roger was in the lead.

He was still wearing the same clothes as when they'd bailed him out of jail in Chicago four days earlier, with the new additions of a bright yellow top hat with peacock feathers in the band and a matching boa, both of them taken from the samba queen he'd been photographed with the previous night. He was carrying a bottle of rum. His eyes were bright and he had an intoxicated smile on his face, which vanished in a hurry when he spied the group waiting for him.

Toby had been at the back of the group so far. Upon seeing Roger, however, it seemed he could no longer contain himself – he shoved his way to the front. “Roger!” he shouted, pointing at the smaller man. “I am going to kick your ass all the way back to Chicago!”

Roger looked down at the bottle in his hand as if wondering whether this were some kind of alcohol-induced hallucination. If that were, in fact, what he was thinking, he quickly decided it was not – the people he'd left on a boat in the middle of nowhere really  _ had _ caught up with him, and they were  _ angry _ . “Mother fucker,” he said, and threw the bottle at Toby before taking off at a run.

The bottle fell to the pavement at Toby's feet without breaking, and rolled away down the hill, spilling what was left of its contents. Everybody ignored it. Having found Roger, they couldn't let him get away again. Without anyone needing to say a word, they all took off to follow him.

The crowds made this difficult. It wasn't just that there were people in the way – it was the fact that almost all of those people were shorter than Steve but taller than Roger. If Roger looked back, he could see exactly where they were, while they could follow  _ him _ only by tracking the surprised yelps and stumbles of the people he was desperately pushing through. It was Natasha who caught up first. She sprinted ahead of the others, vaulting over a man on a motorcycle that tried to drive in front of them, and grabbed Roger by the jacket. He yanked his arms out of it and tried to run again, but she shouted something inaudible over the music blaring from a nearby shop, and he immediately crumpled into an unconscious heap at her feet.

Megan caught up and stared at Roger's fallen body for a moment in confusion – then her expression changed, first to understanding and then to anger. “You didn't!”

“I needed to incapacitate him,” Natasha said. “This was just the easiest way to do it without hurting him. Does somebody want to take him? I don't think I can carry him with my shoulder still healing.”

Sam obligingly gathered Roger up, hefting his limp body over one shoulder like a sack of flour. “Where are we going now?” he asked.

“Someplace with a chair we can tie him to before we bring him around,” Natasha said. “I've got a few questions for him.” This may have been the greatest understatement Steve had heard her make that week.

Finding a place to interrogate Roger was difficult. Every hotel room, guest room, and shanty roof in the city was already occupied by the influx of tourists. Eventually, they ended up in an abandoned shop on one of the winding hillside streets, away from the city center where most of the party was going on. Natasha behaved as if she knew this area particularly well, but did not divulge any details of why she would feel at home in a Brazilian slum. Since they didn't have a chair, they tied Roger to an exposed support pillar.

“I want him awake when I hand him his teeth,” said Toby.

“ _ No _ , Toby,” said Megan.

“You're not allowed to stop him this time,” Natasha told her, as she double-checked the knots. “We made a deal.”

“ _Seriously_?” Megan put her hands on her hips. “Is this how we're going to solve our problems now? Mind control and violence? Because that makes us no better than HYDRA!”

Toby held up a finger. “Godwin!” he said.

“Fuck Godwin!” snapped Megan.

Natasha stood up and folded her arms across her chest. “Sometimes violence is the only thing you _can_ use against violence,” she said, then glanced at her unconscious captive and added, “or against sheer stupidity.”

“What about the mind control?” Megan demanded. “I thought you were supposed to be the good guys! _Good_ guys don't do things like that!”

“I use what I have,” Natasha said. “It isn't always what's nice. I'm not a _nice_ person.”

“Apparently not! It's no wonder Captain Rogers doesn't trust anyone, when he hangs around with _you_!” She stepped forward, as if to shove Natasha like a child on a playground.

Sam intervened. “Hey, whoa,” Sam said, putting an arm in between the two women. “Megan, you're the one saying we can't solve anything with violence.”

“I'm not being violent!” Megan said.

“No, you're just _yelling_ ,” Toby said. “If we're gonna yell at somebody, let's yell at the guy who deserves it.” He pointed at Roger.

Steve knelt down in front of Roger and raised the young man's head. “ _Jahrhundert_ ,” he said.

Roger's eyes opened. He wrenched his head free of Steve's hand, then quickly lowered it as the dizziness hit him. He seemed to spend a moment recovering and taking in his surroundings – the gutted shop interior, the shafts of sunlight coming in around the brown paper that was peeling off the windows, and the cracked the stained tile floor he was kneeling on – before he finally managed to speak.

“Oh, man,” he groaned. “What did you _do_? Did you hit me?” He tried to reach up and feel his head, only to discover that his hands were tied.

“I turned off your brain,” Natasha said tranquilly. “It wasn't hard.”

“She'll never do it again,” said Megan.

Natasha ignored her. “Do you care to explain yourself?” she asked Roger.

Roger looked around at them, taking in exactly who his captors were, and then his eyes narrowed. “Eat my ass,” he said. “I don't have to explain myself to anybody.”

Toby started to take a step towards him, but Megan grabbed him to hold him back.

Nobody, however, stopped Steve as he got a handful of Roger's t-shirt. “You _really_ think you don't have to explain yourself to the people you abandoned at sea after we bailed you out of jail?”

“You guys were gonna dump me anyway,” Roger snorted. “You're just mad that _I_ dumped _you_ first!”

That was too much for Toby. “We weren't going to dump you until we could do it somewhere Fenstermacher couldn't find you!” he said. “Ever since SHIELD collapsed the rest of us keep having to save your butt, and _you_ keep going right back out and getting in more trouble! What the hell is _wrong_ with you?”

“You _told_ us to _trust_ you!” Steve added.

“It's not _my_ fault you're dumb enough to do it,” said Roger. “Must come from all those muscles. Action figures don't have brains _or_ dicks, do they?”

Steve tensed his jaw muscles and took a deep breath, trying to control his temper. Was this how guys had used to feel when _he'd_ stood up to them? This _how dare he_ affront at being insulted by a man half his size? It would be so easy, and probably effective, to just punch Roger over and over until he shut up – but that was what a bully would do. Steve refused to be a bully, no matter how tempting Roger made it.

“When people tell me to trust them, I like to believe I _can_ ,” he said – and he'd really thought he'd be able to, with Roger. He'd thought Roger just needed to feel like he was part of something important and he would find his purpose, as Steve himself once had. “I thought you'd be better than that.”

“Then I'm glad I disappoint you,” said Roger. “In case you haven't noticed, I'm not you. I'll _never_ be you, and I don't _try_.”

“You wouldn't have had to try very hard to _not_ steal our plane and leave us on the _Santo Eustáquio_ ,” Natasha observed sourly.

Roger scoffed. “It can't have been that bad. That was _yesterday_ , and here you are!”

“We _called_ you to come get us!” Sam said. “We needed help!”

“You obviously handled it! You guys are _superheroes_ , for fuck's sake,” Roger rolled his eyes. “Like you need _me_!”

“Forget it,” Steve decided. He now doubted Roger had enough of a conscience to _care_ what had happened on the ship – they just needed to get the plane back. After that, they could leave Roger to whatever fate he liked. He probably wasn't in any danger in Rio de Janeiro that wasn't of his own making, and maybe the experience would teach him that his actions had consequences. “Is that what you were thinking when you left us?” he asked. “We could look after ourselves, so you could go party?”

“Exactly,” Roger nodded.

“I knew it,” said Toby. “You sold the plane, didn't you? God damn... I _knew_ it! You sold the plane so you could buy booze and hookers!”

Roger, however, looked offended by this suggestion. “I did not! Geeze, how stupid do you think I am?” He didn't give any of them a chance to answer this question, which was a pity – Steve was sure any one of them would have been happy to do so. “I _need_ the plane! How am I gonna get to Argentina without the plane?”

That was an unexpected statement. They'd all assumed that Rio de Janeiro and its Carnival were Roger's ultimate destination. “You're going to Argentina?” Steve asked with a frown. “Why?”

“To find Fenstermacher,” said Roger, as if this should have been obvious. “You guys said he had the super-soldier serum. You think I'm gonna ignore if there's a hit of _that_ available?”

Megan threw her hands into the air. “You're an idiot!” she said. “He'd just do like he did with Evan and the others, and take you apart to get your DNA! Do you have a death wish or something?”

“It's _Roger_ ,” Toby told her. “Of course he does. We've known that for years.”

“I'm persuasive,” said Roger proudly. “I mean, I persuaded Blast Hardcheese here to trust me. Besides, I'm already _here_. He wouldn't have to grow me and program me and all that stuff you said he'd be doing with his new clones.”

Toby scowled, disgusted. “So you'd do Fenstermacher's dirty work in exchange for the serum?”

“Of course not,” Roger said. “I was gonna punch his lights out and then go chill in the jungle. After Carnival.”

He sounded so _pleased_ with himself. Didn't he realize how suicidally stupid the whole plan was? Did he even... Steve stopped in mid-thought as he realized Roger might have some very important information for them. “So... you know where Fenstermacher is?” he asked.

“What?” asked Roger. “No.”

“So how were you planning on finding you?” Natasha wanted to know.

Roger shrugged. “I was still working on that.”

“That's...” Steve began, but couldn't finish the sentence. What was it? Ludicrous? Reckless? Short-sighted? Steve's _own_ plans had consisted mostly of _I'm working on it_ for the past _week_. In fact, Steve's plans had been built on a shaky foundation of _I'm working on it_ ever since the day he'd almost decided to walk to Austria all by himself to find a friend who might or might not be alive. How could he fault Roger for being rash when he'd done _that_?

“So after all that, give us _one_ good reason why we shouldn't return the favour and leave you tied up here to be eaten by rats,” said Natasha.

“Because you're the good guys,” said Roger with a smug smile.

Natasha was not impressed. She knelt down next to Steve and leaned in so close to Roger that her nose almost touched his. “ _Try again_ ,” she said coldly.

Roger's smile flickered, then returned. “Because you need me to tell you where the plane is,” he said.

“Because we can't let him out of our sight,” Steve said. “That's why. If we leave him here, he might do anything.” Offhand, he couldn't  _ think _ of any way Roger could cause them more trouble after they'd left Rio, but he was sure that if one existed Roger could find it. “If we take him along he'll be dead weight, but at least we'll know where he is.” He looked at Roger again. “Where's the plane?”

“What's in it for me?” Roger asked.

“Answer the question,” said Steve, who was almost out of patience.

Apparently Roger could tell. “It's at the bottom of the cliff, below the Giant Disapproving Jesus,” he said. “I'm not gonna tell you exactly where. You have to let me take you.”

It was  _ infuriating _ that Roger could be outnumbered and tied to a post, yet  _ still _ be in charge of the situation. Clearly, he knew perfectly well that Steve wouldn't really hurt him no matter what he said or did, and meant to take full advantage of that. It made Steve's blood boil.

“You just  _ left _ it?” asked Toby.

“It's in the trees, like in Florida,” Roger said. “Nobody saw me. They were all at the pre-party. The only guys who came to investigate were a bunch of drunks who thought they'd seen a UFO land. I turned on all the lights and came down the ramp with my hands up and said,  _ Klaatu Barata Nikto _ !” He deepened his voice, trying to make the nonsense words sound ominious. “They ran like hell.”

Sam just shook his head.

Natasha stood up. “The Corcovado is less than half a mile from the city,” she said. When they'd landed the plane in Florida, it had been a good distance from the nearest population center, which had been the relatively small town of Zephyrhills, and there'd always been somebody there to guard it. Roger had landed within the city limits of a sprawling metropolis and then just walked away. The temptation to just punch him grew stronger.

“I'll show you the way,” Roger repeated. “But you have to untie me.”

Natasha glared down at him. “We'll untie you,” she said, “but if you try to run away, we reserve the right to knock you out again.”

“No, you don't!” said Megan. “That's not a right. We're not... we're not vacuum cleaners or something that you just shut off when you're not using us!”

“Are you sure?” asked Toby. “You can't tell me Roger doesn't suck.”

Megan stared at him, took a deep breath, and then just turned away, too angry to speak.

They did untie Roger, but as they made their way to a bus stop, the rest of the party arranged themselves around him so that he wouldn't have an opening to bolt through. Getting to the spot meant a thirty-minute bus ride to the Casa de España, and then a climb over a chain-link fence followed by a long, hot, sticky hike up the hillside towards the cliff base below Christ the Redeemer, through unpleasant tropical foliage full of insects.

The first sign of something wrong was when they came across a recent trail. Somebody else – perhaps a large group – had been through the forest here recently, cutting back the bush that was in their way. Cut branches had been left where they'd fallen, and in the dirt were fragmentary tracks from military or hiking boots.

Just below the foot of the cliff, the trees ended, and there was a small flat area of bare granite, just big enough for a vertical takeoff craft like the quinjet to set down – which it apparently had, if the broken and flattened bushes around the edge of the clearing were any indication. The plane itself, however, was not there.

Steve's first instinct was to look at Roger, suspecting a trick. Roger  _ was _ wearing heavy boots as part of his ridiculous 'punk' aesthetic. Maybe he  _ had _ left the plane here, but then returned and moved it to a safer location. And after his talk of 'adventure' in the jungle, he would be the sort to clear a path by chopping it out with a machete.

Sam must've had the same reaction. He rounded on Roger and grabbed his lapels. “Did you really leave it here?” he demanded, “or are you trying to send us running off looking for it while you escape and find another party?”

Roger didn't reply right away. He was staring at the empty clearing and for the first time since they'd brought him around, he looked something other than arrogant. Since the moment Steve met him, Roger had never shown signs of being afraid of any of them. No matter whether they trusted  _ him _ , Roger had been confident that he could trust  _ them _ – they were 'the good guys', and 'good guys' didn't go around hurting ninety-five pound asthmatics. Now, however, he looked terrified.

“It was right here!” he protested. “I left it here last night! Come on, nobody could have taken off in it, the whole city would have seen!”

“Oh, but nobody saw you  _ land _ it!” said Toby, and turned to Steve. “Why couldn't you have just told him  _ no _ ? If  _ I'd  _ been flying, I wouldn't have had to unlock the biological key on the controls – then  _ nobody _ could have taken it! You don't trust Stark after he helped save the goddamn planet, but then you trust  _ Roger _ ?” He turned around and, before anybody could stop him, tackled Roger, ramming his head into the smaller man's chest. Roger's jacket was torn from Sam's grip, and the two clones rolled away down the hill.

“Guys!” Megan ran after them. “ _ Guys _ !”

Sam shook his head and looked at Steve and Natasha. Neither of them were particularly interested in going to help Roger – Steve was pretty sure that Megan could stop Toby from hurting him too badly if she tried. It was terribly tempting to just let the three of them fight it out while Steve, Sam, and Natasha figured out where they would go from here.

Then they heard Megan's terrified shriek. All three turned towards the sound, just as a dozen men in combat fatigues came running out of the trees.

Steve's arm went to his shoulder to grab his shield, but of course it wasn't there. Quickly, he dropped to the ground and pushed Sam out of the way, anticipating being shot at, but instead the mercenaries ran in to grab them with their hands. Steve did a somersault and kicked one of them in the chin, knocking him over backwards, then spun to deal with a second, only to see a swirl of blonde hair and watch the second man thrown to the ground. Megan had taken him out from behind.

“Violence!” Natasha scolded, as she shot two more attackers in the knees.

Megan ignored her in favour of pulling out the gun the man had been keeping in the back of his belt and tossing it to Toby, who was just reappearing from out of the trees. He almost caught it, but in the last moment, two more mercenaries caught his arms. Another emerged, carrying Roger, only to let go with a string of very colourful curses in several languages when Roger bit his hand hard enough to draw blood.

Natasha ran in to take out the men holding Toby, while Sam grabbed the fallen gun. That left Steve to punch Roger's captor in his face and disarm him, but by now a second wave of mercenaries were coming out of the trees. This had all been a trap – they'd seen the plane and hung around it, waiting for the group to return.

“ _ Captura Capitán America y el poco mordedor _ !” one man commanded. “ _ Mata a los demás _ !”

That wasn't Portuguese, that was Spanish, and Steve understood it perfectly: these men were after Captain America and 'the little biter', no doubt for their DNA. The rest could die. Steve hit another mercenary in the face and then pushed him into two others so that he could have a breathing moment to shout to his own companions. “Into the bush!” he ordered. Sam and Natasha would have understood the Spanish as well, and would know that they had to get Toby and Megan out of here. “Meet back at the club!”

Natasha noded. “We've got this! Go!”

Earlier, Steve had fleetingly worried whether Natasha might have her own agenda in making this journey with them. In that moment, however, he didn't have  _ time _ not to trust her. He grabbed Roger's arm and lifted him bodily off the ground. “Come on!”

They dived into the bush. Steve ducked and rolled as bullets whizzed over their heads, then sprang up and ran, pulling Roger along behind him. Roger did his best to keep up, but his legs weren't nearly long enough. He ended up being dragged almost as much as he ran, panting and begging Steve to slow down.

“Please!” he gasped. “I... I can't...”

“Shut up and run! They're right behind us!” said Steve.

There was a small clear space in the forest where a dead tree had fallen. Steve jumped over it. Roger fell and ran into him. The two rolled into a bush, getting covered with its prickly burrs. Steve pulled himself out and got up, but Roger just lay there, gasping. Steve reached to pick him up again, then remembered – asthma. Before the serum, he'd had asthma. Right now Roger was terrified and out of breath, and he was having an asthma attack. He literally could not go any further.

“ _ Ahí están _ !” said a voice. Steve looked up, and saw three shapes approaching through the foliage. He could take three, but he might get shot, and if he went down there'd be nobody to protect Roger. For lack of a better idea, he hefted a broken section of the fallen tree. The wood was dry and relatively light, but it was still an effort to lift. Enhanced Steve might be, but he was only human.

As the men emerged, Steve turned, letting the end of the tree swing. It took branches off its still-living cousins, and sent two of the men sprawling. One hollered as he rolled away down the hill. The other was smacked against the trunk of a standing tree, and fell to the ground, dazed. The third managed to duck in time, and raised his gun. Steve dropped the tree and looked for anything he could use to defend himself. Nothing came to mind. He would have to scoop Roger up and run for it, and just hope to make it back to the city in one piece.

Then he heard a _bang_ , and the man keeled over. Behind him was Natasha, gun in hand.

“Are there any more?” asked Steve.

“They won't be walking home,” Natasha replied. “Are you both okay?”

“No,” said Steve. “Roger's not.”

“Yes I am!” Roger wheezed. “I'm okay!” He grabbed a branch to get up, but he was still bent over, gasping. “I just need a soda!”

“Soda won't help,” Steve told him.

“It might,” Natasha said. “Caffeine is similar in structure to theophylline. It's worth a try. Can you walk?” she asked Roger.

“Yes,” Roger said.

Steve didn't believe him. He scooped Roger up to carry him in the bridal position.

“Hey!” Roger protested. “Put me down! I can...” he had to breathe hard again. “I can...”

“No. You can't,” Steve said firmly. He remembered Bucky having to practically carry him home a couple of times... he'd hated it and spent the whole journey complaining indignantly. But he'd known, somewhere not too deep down, that no matter what he said he was not capable of walking on his own, and he didn't doubt that Roger did, too.

They made it back to the Casa de España, where they got Roger the soda he wanted. When an employee there heard that this man had suffered an asthma attack, he was kind enough to lend Roger his own inhaler. Roger huffed on it a few more times than medically necessary before he gave it back. Slowly, the colour began to return to his face, and his breathing became more normal.

“Superheroes,” he muttered, perhaps to himself.

Sam, Megan, and Toby caught up with them about twenty minutes later. There was a bit of blood on Sam's shirt, and quite a lot of it caked in Toby's hair, but neither was badly hurt. Sam had sustained a knife gash to his neck and collarbone, and Toby'd had his head slammed against a tree, but they would both survive. Megan sat Toby down to clean him up and check for a concussion. It seemed that she, like Natasha on the _Santo Eustáquio_ , had benefited from chivalry. The mercenaries hadn't wanted to attack a woman, even one perfectly capable of fighting back.

“I think you'll manage,” she told Toby, dabbing at his scalp with a damp paper towel.

“Lucky for me I've got rocks in my head,” he sighed. “What do we do now?”

Everybody looked at Steve for the answer, of course. He thought for a moment. “Those men were waiting for us,” he said. “Somebody took the plane, and then left the mercenaries there to get us when we came back for it.” It wasn't just anybody who could steal a quinjet, either – even with the biological key overridden, the controls were very different from those on an ordinary aircraft. It could have been that HYDRA found the plane serendipitously, but that didn't seem very likely. Somebody had known where to look.

“They've got a spy in the navy,” said Sam. “The only people who knew where we were going were the crew of the  _ Uatumã _ .”

Steve was still wearing his  _ Uatumã _ t-shirt. He glanced down at it with a sinking feeling that he should have listened to his suspicions. “I don't think Captain da Silva would have let us leave the ship if she were HYDRA herself,” he said, but that was only one person ruled out, out of dozens.

“But she had to inform her superiors of the situation, just like General Cordero,” said Natasha. “And then  _ they _ would have to tell  _ other _ people as they prepare to take action. You can't just ignore the potential for invasion by an army of super-soldiers. There were probably hundreds of people who knew where we were and where we were headed before we even left the  _ Uatumã _ .”

That meant their enemies could be anyone, anywhere, and it would surely be only a matter of hours before they learned that the ambush hadn't worked. Steve and the others had to leave Rio de Janeiro – to leave  _ Brazil _ – quickly and quietly.


	15. An Interrupted Journey

Leaving Brazil undetected was such a simple idea, and so complicated in execution. Cortes had given Steve a bus schedule, but that probably meant the bus was the first place anyone would look for them. Cortes might be the one who'd taken the plane and set the trap, himself. He was one of the people who knew they were going to Rio de Janeiro, having dropped them off himself. He'd also been directing the search for survivors from the fishing boat. Could he have taken a moment between doing that to have somebody go to Rio and wait for Roger to arrive?

It didn't matter, Steve decided. They couldn't take the bus anyway. A bus was slow, and would make multiple stops. A bus would be full of people who could see them, recognize them, photograph them, and follow them. They could rent a car, but that would require a credit card, leaving a record of when they left and what vehicle they were driving. Without the plane, that left them with only one real option.

That night, with the sun setting, they rumbled out of the city, heading west towards Sao Paulo in a stolen pickup truck.

Steve could tell from the beginning that it was going to be a miserable trip. There was only room for two in the cab of the truck. One of these was, of course, the driver – for the first leg of the trip this was Sam. After dome discussion, they decided that the other would be Roger.

“Shotgun!” said Roger, doing up his seat belt.

Nobody answered as the rest of them climbed into the bed, which looked suspiciously like it had been last used to transport livestock. Toby spread out his jacket for himself and Megan to sit on, but she still looked deeply unhappy about it.

“This is gross,” she complained. “Are we  _ sure _ Roger has to sit inside?”

“He'd be gone the minute we stopped at a red light,” Toby snorted.

“We could Sleeping Beauty him again,” Natasha suggested, snapping her fingers. Steve couldn't tell if she were kidding or not.

“No, we  _ can't _ ,” Megan said firmly. “If you want to knock him out, I'd rather you just hit him over the head!”

“I can do that,” Natasha said.

“I have an idea,” Sam said. “If all we're gonna do is snarl at each other, how about we just don't talk at all?”

Apparently everybody agreed with this, but nobody could think of a way to say so that wouldn't be more snarling – because other than a few sullen nods, there was no reply at all. Sam seemed satisfied with that, because he started the truck, and they rumbled off.

The drive was about as unpleasant as Steve expected. There were no seat belts or padding in the bed, so everyone had to simply hang on as best they could while they bounced around. The road was paved, but the truck didn't seem to have any sock absorbers, so every small bump was magnified directly through everyone's bones. Nor was there any air conditioning, leaving everybody sweating and miserable in the damp seaside heat.

They reached Sao Paulo on the main road by about midnight, stopped for gas and a quick dinner, and then detoured North into the farmland, choosing a route that would take them off the highway and through Paraguay. This was along ttrip, and made to seem even longer by the fact that everybody had taken to heart Sam's advice – if they couldn't say anything nice to each other, they weren't going to say anything at all. Even  _ Roger _ didn't talk, perhaps because he resented their blaming him for losing the plane. Steve observed that Roger didn't seem to mind being in trouble for things that  _ were _ his fault, but got very upset when it was something that  _ wasn't _ . That was, Steve supposed, fair.

At sunrise they stopped in some nameless little town for a breakfast of strong coffee and some kind of sweet pastry, and to switch drivers again. Natasha took over, since Steve's shoulder and back were still bruised, and Natasha had healed enough in the past week that she felt like she could drive again. Nobody had argued that they shouldn't drive through the night. Nobody was actually  _ speaking _ to each other, of course, but they also all knew that whoever had sent those mercenaries would surely try again. If they stopped, they might be seen. Besides, Roger was probably just waiting for a chance to escape – he would surely be gone by the time they woke.  
Steve didn't want to discuss it, but he didn't like having to bring the clones with them. They couldn't leave them down – they had to keep Roger out of trouble, and if they left Toby and Megan behind the two of them might be caught and killed. But none of them would be any use now if it came to a fight, not when their enemies could know all three out with a word. If something happened to them, time and energy would have to be expended on a rescue. They couldn't leave them, but bringing them along put everybody else in danger.

What everybody really needed now, Steve thought, was space to breathe. That was what Sam and Natasha had been so set on having when they were still in the States, and what Steve had repeatedly denied them. If they'd had a day they could have regrouped, gathered allies, and tried to resolve their accumulated interpersonal issues, but there was no longer any opportunity for such things. It gave Steve a terrible foreboding feeling, even worse than the dark, thunder sky that was soon looming over them.

By early afternoon they were in Paraguay, and out of the farmland into forest that slowly began to look more and more like the trackless jungle Roger had dreamed of. The sky got darker, and the wind colder, until finally rain began to fall in icy, stinging drops. There was a blue tarp under one of the seats in the truck, which the people in the back spread over themselves, but it didn't do much good, especially with the wind threatening to blow it away at any moment. Even Roger and Toby, who was taking his turn to drive, got wet – the cab had no glass in its side or back windows, and the rain went right inside.

“I'm cold,” Roger whined.

“I thought you were Roger,” Toby deadpanned.

“Very funny,” said Roger. “I _mean_ it, I'm cold!”

“Nice to meet you, Cold. I'm Toby.”

“Dad jokes?” groaned Roger. “Really? Are you serious?”

“Didn't you hear him?” asked Natasha. “He's not Serious, he's _Toby_.”

Roger gave up. “You're all assholes,” he declared.

They crossed the Paraguay River into Argentina, and the jungle gave way to open fields again. These were uncultivated grassland, rather than the farm crops they'd seen in Brazil. Driving through them made Steve feel terribly exposed. This was a very wild, very lonely place, where human things like roads and cars were alien intrusions.

The rain gradually eased, and the sky began to clear just in time for a magnificent orange sunset that nobody was in any mood to appreciate. Steve would have given anything for a shower and a bed – or even just a blanket to sleep under, instead of sitting in the back of the truck in his damp clothes with the drippy tarp. Tomorrow they would be in Buenos Aires, but he couldn't even look forward to that, because there still wouldn't be any time to rest. They'd be too busy keeping their heads down, trying not to be spotted or attacked again before they could find Fenstermacher. How were they going to do that? He must have made some kind of arrangements to transport the _Santo Eustáquio_ 's cargo of clone material to wherever he was hiding. Maybe there was a shipping company that would know.

Natasha reached through the back window and grabbed Sam's shoulder – his turn had come around again, and he was in the driver's seat. “Stop the truck,” she ordered.

“Stop?” asked Sam, not sure he'd heard correctly. Steve wasn't sure, either. Why should they stop? The sky was almost dark now. Theirs were the only visible headlights, showing that they were the only vehicle on the road for miles, in the middle of grassland dotted with small clumps of tropical trees. The air was heavy and humid after the rain, and there was still that sense of foreboding, but no visible threat.

“Stop,” she repeated. “I hear something.”

Sam pulled over and shut off the engine. For a moment everybody sat holding their breaths, listening. In the heavy air, thunder rumbled behind them – and then they heard the other sound. The low, distant throb of a helicopter approaching.

Steve stood up for a better look around. It took him a few second to spot the helicopters. The sound didn't seem to be coming from any particular direction, but he finally saw the two dogs growing slowly larger on the Western horizon. He swallowed. They were miles from anywhere, out in the open where they were easy to spot and had nowhere to hide. The nearest patch of trees was at least two hundred yards away. They were sitting ducks, with literally nowhere to go.

But they had to try. “To the trees,” said Steve.

Nobody waited to be told twice – they piled out of the truck and hit the ground running. Steve waited to go last so he could help anyone who fell. Once the others were all on their way, he vaulted over the side of the truck and ran into the grass, only to find that what he'd thought was a grassland was actually a knee-deep swamp. Unprepared, he fell forward and caught himself with his arms, getting soaked all over again when his clothes had only just been starting to dry after the rain.

There was no time to worry about it, though. He squelched through the water and mud towards the nearest patch of trees. It grew steadily closer, but so did the sound of helicopter rotors, until it drowned out all other sound. Soon Steve could feel the downward wind on his neck, making his soaked t-shirt stick to his skin. A spotlight came on and swept through the tall grass up ahead, between Steve and the rest of the party. Roger dived out of the way and landed on his face with a splash. Natasha ran to help him up, but Steve reached him first.

“Are you okay?” he asked, pulling Roger out of the filthy water.

Roger was sputtering on a mouthful of mud, but he nodded. “I'm good!”

The spotlight found Natasha. She dropped onto her knees in the mud. Steve pulled Roger back down below the level of the tall grass and the two crawled towards her. She was okay, but none of them could move now: the helicopters were right on top of them.

There were two of these, big troop-carriers, painted dark green on top and pale blue-gray on the bottom, to blend in with both sky and land. They were clearly military vehicles, and their multiple rotors whipped the high grass into tangles and ruffled the water below. More lights came on, flooding the whole field with harsh white illumination, as if for a night-time concert or sports game. One helicopter landed on the road in front of the truck. The other hovered low and its doors opened, spilling out at least two dozen men.

These men were not a mishmash of South American mercenaries like the ones who'd attacked them in Rio de Janeiro. These were a _unit_ , in matching black fatigues and helmets, moving together with the trained efficiency of marines or SWAT specialists.

Roger couldn't see what was happening, and tried to rose so he could look. Steve had to grab him and keep him below the grass while he analyzed the situation. The Spanish orders from the leader in Rio de Janeiro echoed in his head: _take Captain America and the little biter. Kill the others_. They wanted him, and possibly Roger. If they thought they had Steve, maybe the others could get away.

“Natasha,” Steve whispered – there was no way she could hear him over the thunder of the helicopters, but he knew she could read his lips. “Whatever happens, stay out of sight. You and Sam take the clones to Buenos Aires and get them out of the country. I'll catch up to you there if I can.”

She nodded and mouthed something back. It looked like _hold on to your binoculars_.

“What?” asked Steve. “The binoculars?”

She grabbed Roger, only for him to unexpectedly duck away and grab Steve's arm. “No!” he shouted – they could just about hear him over the noise. “I'm not going with her!”

“Go with her!” Steve ordered him.

“She'll kill me!” Roger protested, eyes wide. He looked like he really believed it. Natasha did have the most fearsome reputation of the three superheroes, and she _had_ made offhand threats towards Roger multiple times. Steve and Sam both knew that those had just been her way of venting her frustration with him – couldn't Roger tell the difference? It was true that he'd only just met Natasha a few days ago, but Toby and Megan had said similar things for similar reasons.

Unfortunately, right now was hardly the time to try to explain. The soldiers were going to be on them any moment, and...

“On your feet! Hands in the air!” a voice shouted.

Steve looked up into a dozen gun barrels. Very slowly, he stood up, holding his hands up on either side of his head so that they could see he was unarmed. He tried to look around for Natasha without moving his head, but saw no sign of her. She had vanished into the swirling pampas grass, trusting Steve to look after Roger. God _damn_ it. Why couldn't Roger have trusted her?

While most of the soldiers surrounded Steve, one grabbed Roger and yanked him roughly to his feet. Roger yelped in pain, and Steve tried to think fast. Roger's was easily the most physically helpless member of the group. The others could get away on their own, but it was up to Steve now to make sure Roger would be safe, and he didn't have a lot of options. If he fought, he was going to be shot.

But better Captain America than the ninety-five pound asthmatic. He waited until the soldier holding Roger was within arm's length, then dropped his hands and threw a punch at the man's head.

The soldier caught it.

Instead of hitting his helmet, Steve's fist slammed into a raised hand as if he'd hit a wall, and the soldier bent Steve's arm down like a playground bully might, twisting his elbow painfully. Steve tried to break out of it, but two more soldiers grabbed his arms and forced him to his knees. They were inhumanly strong. The last time Steve had felt a grip like that was from Bucky's metal arm, and before that, the nearest thing had been the Red Skull himself. These guys weren't normal soldiers at all. They'd been enhanced somehow.

Summoning all his strength, Steve rolled forward, taking the men holding him along for the ride. They slammed into the guy holding Roger, but as Steve got up, a dozen more men surrounded him, grabbing him from all sides. They slung their weapons and seized him by the arms, by the legs, by the clothing. Within seconds he was in the middle of a crush of men, some of them a little bigger than himself, barely able to move. What _were_ these guys?

No less than three now had a hold of Roger, which was two and a half more than was probably necessary. Of Sam, Natasha, and the other two clones there was no sign – they must have made it to the relative safety of the trees, but they would know they couldn't stay there. Sam and Natasha were good, but they wouldn't be able to take these guys, not in numbers, not when they'd overpowered _Steve_ so easily.

The remaining soldiers closed a circle around Steve and Roger, and forced them both to turn and face where another individual was approaching. This man was shorter than the others, and instead of black fatigues he wore kakhi pants, big boots, and a photographer's vest over a plaid shirt. He might have been forty-five or fifty years old. He had light brown eyes, almost gold, like a cat's, with a slight fold at the inner corners that suggested he was part Asian – his Roman nose, on the other hand, was definitely European. His head was shaved, but he wore a thin, patchy beard. Steve did not recognize him. He wasn't one of the Finsters.

“Captain Rogers!” this man shouted over the helicopter noise. “Pleasure to meet you! And SGR-Φ20.” His ironic smile disappeared disappeared. “If I never saw _you_ again it would be too soon, but here we are.”

Roger scowled at him, and Steve didn't doubt that if his hands had not been restrained, he would have made any number of rude gestures.

“Where are your companions?” the bald man demanded.

“You're not after them!” Steve replied. “You're after _us_!” He'd stopped struggling, trying to preserve his dignity, but Roger was still wiggling like a catfish. Steve didn't dare look for the others – the thing to do now, he'd decided, was to keep this man talking, and hold his gaze. As long as he and the soldiers were looking at Steve and Roger, they weren't chasing the rest of the party.

But the bald man nodded and smiled. “They're already gone,” he said. “You wouldn't give yourself up unless to distract us.” He turned to the men around him. “Units Alpha and Beta, search the area! Find the Widow, the Falcon, AES-Γ12 and MVC-Θ39. Kill them all. Units Gamma and Delta, escort Captain Rogers and SGR-Φ20 to the aircraft.”

Half the soldiers split off and fanned out. Steve could only hope he'd bought them enough time. The others moved in around Steve and Roger, and they all followed the bald man back to the helicopters. They had a set of hand and leg cuffs waiting for Steve, similar to the ones HYDRA had put him in for transport in Washington – he wondered if they were the same set. Several soldiers locked him into those, while another handcuffed Roger's ankles to a seat.

One vehicle stayed behind to pick up the remaining units. The other took off, with Steve, Roger, and the bald man on board. Out the window, Steve could see the lights of the remaining helicopter, shrinking away below them.

These helicopters were better-insulated than the ones belonging to the Brazilian coast guard. Once the doors were shut, it was quiet inside. The bald man strapped himself in across from Steve and Roger. “Buckle up, gentlemen,” he said. “It's gonna be a long flight.”

“Fuck you,” said Roger. Steve at first assumed this was addressed to the bald man, but when he looked up, he saw that Roger was looking at _him_.

“Me?” he asked, puzzled.

“Yes, _you_!” said Roger. “Some _superhero_ you turned out to be!”

“I told you to go with Natasha,” Steve replied.

“I figured you were gonna _save_ me!” Roger said. “Then you just lie down and let the bad guys step on you!”

“Sometimes that's what a superhero does,” said Steve. The statement was more to make himself feel better than because he thought Roger would understand it. _Lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you._ He wanted to believe that his capture had given the others had a chance to get away.

“What about protecting the innocent civilians!” Roger demanded.

Steve had no more patience for this. “You're the _least_ innocent civilian I've ever met,” he said.

“ _Dornröschen_ ,” said the bald man, and Roger collapsed. The bald man nodded, satisfied. “Much better. I don't think I could stand to listen to him for the whole trip.”

Either Steve himself or Natasha could have done that to _force_ Roger to go with her, Steve realized... but as Megan insisted, that wouldn't have been right. Roger wasn't a very nice person, but he was a _person_ who deserved his autonomy. “ _Jahrhudert_ ,” said Steve.

Roger twitched and raised his head, blinking. “Shit,” he groaned, “don't _do_ that.”

The bald man shook his head. “Really?” he asked Steve. “You prefer _his_ company?”

“I don't even know who _you_ are,” Steve pointed out.

“I'm not surprised,” said the man. “You've always struck me as somebody who needed to fight _somebody_ and didn't much care who. Which seems to be the only one of your traits SGR-Φ20 inherited from you,” he added, with a disapproving glare at Roger. “My name, if you care to know it, is Martin Sutter.”

Steve did know that name – it was one Toby and Megan had spoken with loathing and fear. “I don't know you,” he said. “But I know what you've done.”

“Oh, really?” Sutter looked skeptical. “And how does Captain America describe what I've done?”

“You've wasted a lot of human lives,” Steve said.

Sutter frowned, confused, and it seemed to honestly take him a few moments to figure out what Steve meant. “Them?” he asked, gesturing to Roger in disbelief. “They're _clones_.”

“They're _people_ ,” said Steve.

“They're _property_ ,” Sutter snorted. “We own their DNA. We have patents on every part of the processes used to create them. And even if you really believe that,” he added, “you know perfectly well that _people_ are nothing but a lot of hooting baboons. Every so often one pops up who's able to accomplish something, but most of them don't have a thought in their heads beyond eat, sleep, fuck, and fling shit at each other. They need _direction_. If you didn't believe that, you wouldn't have tried to bring down Insight by giving an _inspiring speech_.” His tone was of utter contempt, as if the very idea of a nonviolent solution was absurd.

“I try to see the best in people,” said Steve.

“And look where that's got you,” Sutter replied.

Look, indeed, Steve thought. He'd tried to see the best in Roger, and here they were, as a direct result. A moment went by in which Steve dwelt on that thought, and then he realized he was looking right into Roger's eyes. He quickly turned away, but it was too late – Roger could clearly tell what Steve was thinking, and it was slowly sinking in that _he_ had brought them here. If it hadn't been for Roger, they would have been in Buenos Aires with the quinjet by now. He lowered his head, and some rather cold part of Steve observed that at least Roger understood now the consequences of his decisions.

“Dr. Sutter?” asked Roger.

“Nobody gave you permission to speak, Φ20,” said Sutter.

“His name is _Roger_ ,” Steve said.

“Nobody gave _you_ permission to speak, either,” Sutter said.

“Dr. Sutter,” Roger said, “I wanna enlist.”

Steve blinked. Maybe he'd been wrong – maybe Roger _still_ didn't understand. Otherwise, after all they'd been through, how could he _still_ want to go ahead with his original, idiotic plan to get the serum for himself?

Then again, why should Steve be surprised by that? Roger had never shown himself to be anything but selfish and stupid. Even if he now understood that was what he was, it didn't mean he would try to better. He'd said he wasn't going to try to be Steve. Instead, maybe he was going to try to be as selfish and stupid as possible.

“The serum will work on me, right?” Roger insisted. “I wanna enlist! I'm not good for anything else, but I can be a clone trooper!”

Sutter looked at him quietly for a moment or two, in which Steve wasn't sure if the man were about to order Roger shot or just burst out laughing. In the end, however, he did neither. “I think we can find a place for you, Φ20,” he said at last. “If you behave yourself.”

“I will!” Roger promised eagerly. Steve tried not to show any outward reaction, but inside he was shaking his head. Roger didn't know what _behaving himself_ meant.

They flew on for a while in silence. Endless flat grassland rolled by below them in the dark, interrupted only occasionally by a few small lights in a town or the lonely glow of a single set of headlights on the road. Mountains slowly rose on the horizon. They were headed for the Andes.

As the sun rose, they arrived at last at the HYDRA base. This appeared to be an abandoned town, spread out at the foot of a gently sloping mountain. It had once been in the middle of the woods, but there must have been a forest fire, because the trees were all burned, blackened skeletons. New greenery was starting to appear through the rock and ash at the bases of the trunks, which should have been a hopeful sign. Under the present circumstances, Steve thought it looked like a metaphor: the new world sprouting from the ashes of the old. No wonder HYDRA liked it here.

Although it was summer in the Southern Hemisphere, at this elevation the air was chilly. There was snow on the peak of the mountain, and Steve's breath turned to mist in the early morning sunlight as the helicopters landed on an patch of open dirt that served as a parking lot and landing area. The fire seemed to have destroyed much of the town as well as the forest. Most of the buildings were nothing but burned out shells. Instead, row upon row of trailers had been brought up, and even at sunrise, the streets between them were full of people.

There were what looked like troops, out for a walk under the supervision of HYDRA operatives. Men in helmets and black fatigues were unloading supplies from trucks. A row of _tanks_ was parked on the grass not a hundred feet away. Sam and Steve had spent months looking for HYDRA underground, in hiding, but other than its remote location, this was all out in the open. This was a full-fledged _city_ , buzzing with equipment and personnel. There was a row of _tanks_ parked at the edge of the compound. This was _huge_.

Waiting for them at the edge of the dirt patch was a tall man with thinning brown hair. He was a bit overweight, his nose had been broken and healed crooked and his brow was lined from long years of frowning. The face, however, was unmistakeably another Finster's – or maybe, just maybe, this was Fenstermacher himself.

Sutter hopped down from the helicopter with a smile on his face. “We got him!” he announced. “We got _both_ of them! I _told_ you it would work!”

“So you did, Marty, so you did,” the man agreed. “You can gloat about it later.” He turned to Steve. The two were almost the same height, allowing him to speak to Steve right over Roger's head, ignoring the shorter man entirely. “At last, I get to meet Captain America! We missed each other by mere minutes in the Black Forest. I'm Dr. Ralph Finster... in another life I was Wolfgang Fenstermacher.”

Steve nodded and looked around at the compound. “You've been busy,” he said.

“I've had a very long life to be busy in,” Fenstermacher replied. “So have you, but I understand you took a nap.” He looked down at Roger, who was standing there slumped, defiant spirit finally broken. “Take him to bleeding first,” Fenstermacher ordered, “and good riddance.”

“Actually,” Sutter said, “I'd like to dope him up and try the adamantium on him. I have a new nutrient broth and cell booster combo that seems very promising, and if he dies, it's no loss.”

Fenstermacher considered that for a moment, then nodded. “Better than wasting another perfectly good soldier,” he said. “All right, have him examined and prepped. We'll take Rogers to bleeding. I want _you_ to supervise,” he added. “I've had a long night and Quiroga's waiting for me to call him back.”

“It will be my genuine pleasure,” Sutter said. “Gamma Unit, take Φ20 to physical. Tell them to get all that metal out of his face.” He grimaced and made a little wave, as if shooing Roger away. “And anywhere else he might have it. Delta Unit, you're with me and Rogers.”

Roger looked back at Steve as the dozen clones led him away, then quickly dropped his head again. The expression on his face had not been anger or even pleading, but quiet acceptance. He thought he _deserved_ this. He thought Steve had thrown him to the wolves as punishment for leaving them behind on the ship, and he was resigned to that. Steve didn't know what the 'adamantium procedure' entailed, but Sutter and Fenstermacher both seemed to expect Roger to die of it. Nobody _deserved_ that.

Steve's ankles were freed so that he could walk, but the enormous shackles were left on his hands as they led him towards a building with Sutter in the lead.

“Where are we going?” Steve asked, hoping for _some_ clue about what was going to happen next. “Roger gets to join the clone army. What about me?”

“You've got something we need,” said Sutter, and then appeared to change the subject. “I _knew_ those idiots wouldn't be able to take you in Rio. They call them _guerillas_ because they're nothing but half-trained apes. Pierce couldn't get a hold of you and he had much better men than that.” He smirked. “Fortunately, it just so happens that _we_ have the best men around.”

A cold feeling washed over Steve as he looked at the men on either side of him, their faces invisible behind the black helmets. He was obviously supposed to ask what Sutter meant by that, and the very existence of the question gave him a nasty suspicion what the answer would be. He stayed silent, however. If Sutter wasn't going to play by _Steve's_ script, then Steve wouldn't play by _his_ , either.

“The best _possible_ men, in fact,” Sutter added. He waited a moment longer, and when Steve still didn't speak, he said, “gentlemen – helmets off!”

In one motion, which was rather spooky, the soldiers reached up and pulled their helmets off. Steve was not _surprised_ by what he saw, but his heart sank regardless. Every single one of them, he now saw, was approximately the same height and build. Every one of them had blond hair in a military buzz. Every one had blue eyes that stared ahead at nothing. Every single one had a square jaw, the same nose, the same lips, the same hairline.

Every one of them was Steve.

Dumping the _Santo Eustáquio_ 's cargo hadn't prevented anything. Some of the other clones, Steve now remembered, had died months ago. Their blood and marrow had already been brought to South America, and used. HYDRA's clone army was well on its way.

“Aren't they lovely?” asked Sutter. “Unfortunately, even _they_ can't survive the adamantium plating procedure we used on X23, but we're working on that.” He smiled. “We've got plenty of test subjects, and _you_ are going to give us more.”


	16. Qualities Beyond the Physical

 Steve held his head high as the unit of clones led him through the encampment. Part of this was deliberate rebellion, an attempt to annoy Sutter – although it seemed to be a distinctly unsuccessful one, as Sutter didn't even look at him. That was all right with Steve, because it would keep Sutter from noticing the _other_ reason he kept his head up: to take in his surroundings and see what the security was like.

The outskirts of the compound, where the clones and employees lived, seemed to be unguarded. This seemed odd, until Steve remembered that this place would be all the clones knew in very short lives. They had no reason to try to escape, and perhaps no concept of anything to escape _to_. As they approached the center of the base, however, they came to a building that was very well-guarded indeed. This area looked like it had started off as the original town's hospital. Part of the building had been destroyed by the fire that had consumed the forest, but the rest had been patched up and modernized, and more buildings and warehouses had been erected around it. A tall chimney in the hospital roof was venting steam into the sky. The complex was surrounded by an electrified fence that looked fit to keep a dinosaur contained, and there were multiple guards posted at each of two gates. The guards wore the same black fatigues and helmets as the clone soldiers, and at a command from Sutter, let the group through without a word.

At the main hospital entrance, among people coming and going, a familiar face was waiting for them – one of the Finsters. This one had a bandage on his head and a black eye. His military haircut indicated that he might have been Randy from Cheyenne Mountain.

“Good morning, Number Five,” said Sutter sourly. “Needlessly murdered anybody yet today?”

Finster glared back. “No, but come on, it's only eight fifteen.” He looked at Steve and added, grudgingly impressed, “you actually got him.”

“Yes, _some_ of us know how to get things done,” Sutter sniffed. “We're taking him to bleeding.”

Finster followed them into the hospital. The hallways here were narrower than in the underground installation at Cheyenne, but otherwise the interior was very similar, with greenish linoleum and white walls lined by waist-high railings. Where the mountain facility had been dark,however, this place was brightly-lit by both natural and artificial light, that made it look a little less inherently creepy – and where Cheyenne had been abandoned, this was busy and alive. As they passed doorways and windows, Steve glimpsed laboratories with scientists and doctors comparing notes, rooms full of equipment and records, and even caught a glance through a window into a waiting room, where at least a dozen scrawny young men with his own face were sitting in folding metal chairs, staring blankly into space.

“What happened there?” asked Finster, pointing to the stitches in Steve's palms. “That doesn't look like Χ23's work.”

“I cut them on the cargo container on the _Santo Eustáquio_ ,” said Steve. “What happened _there_?” he looked at Finster's head.

“I nearly knocked myself out getting into the lifeboat,” Finster said. “Even with only one arm, your little girlfriend's something.”

“I don't sleep with Natasha,” Steve told him. “I know better.”

The soldiers led Steve into a room with a big metal table in the middle. A dozen guns were trained on him as several operatives in medical scrubs approached and began helping Steve out of his jacket and shirt. They folded these and put them in a plastic tub. Steve heard a thump, and realized it was the digital binoculars falling out of his pocket. They'd probably take those away and he would never see them again. So much for hanging onto them – although for the life of him Steve couldn't imagine what use Natasha had thought they'd be here.

Mercifully, the attendants let Steve keep his trousers. They smeared his upper body with hand sanitizer, and then the clones forced him onto the table to be strapped down. The attendants buckled a plastic strap across Steve's chest – he knew he could break _that_ easily, but he would have a much harder time with the cuffs they snapped around his wrists and ankles. Those were metal, and immense, easily matches for the ones he'd been transported in. For a moment Steve wondered how they could have had this table ready – based on what Sutter had said, capturing him, as opposed to simply killing him, seemed to have been a fairly recent change of plans. Then he realized it wasn't meant for _him_ at all. It had been built to hold his clones for... for what?

“Did you know that you have self-doping blood, Captain?” asked Sutter, as he flipped through a clipboard one of the attendants had given him. “It's actually very clever – your liver stores extra red blood cells to release in times of stress, when your muscles need more oxygen. Like a racehorse. Wonderful! Not only does it give you extra stamina, it's also the reason why you recover so quickly from blood loss.” He signed the last page of paperwork and handed the board back to the attendant. “And that, in case you were wondering, is why you're still alive.”

The aides brought a machine up to Steve's bedside. He didn't know at it was, but there seemed to be a lot of tubes. And racks and racks of translucent blood bags, like the ones in the cargo container.

“Pierce just wanted to have you killed,” Sutter said, “and originally we agreed with him, but then Ralph realized we could _use_ you. Our clones are pretty good, but until I get the adamantium procedure right, they won't be indestructible. Until then we can bleed _you_ for more error-free genetic material, as many times as we need to.”

An attendant put a mask and rubber gloves on, and gently kneaded Steve's lower arm until she found the radial artery. He quickly turned his eyes towards the ceiling, so he wouldn't have to watch as she inserted what seemed like an unnecessarily large needle. She wasn't particularly careful about it, either, and many people would have cried out in pain. Steve, however, did not make a sound. He hadn't screamed since his original dose of serum, seventy years ago. He wasn't going to start now.

“Keep talking to him, Dr. Sutter,” said another attendant. “It'll help us monitor his consciousness.”

Sutter nodded. “So, Captain,” he began, “I suppose seventy years is a long time to go around thinking you'll always be unique. How does...” but he was interrupted by tinny music. Sutter pulled out a cell phone, and Steve recognized the lyrics of the song it was playing: _we're all clones, all are one and one is all._ It was the song Toby had quoted, the day Steve met him.

Sutter put the phone to his ear. “What is it, Ralph? I'm a little busy.” There was a brief pause while Fenstermacher replied. “You _told_ me to supervise bleeding Rogers. I'm supervising it!”

“If you need to go, I can do that,” Finster offered.

Sutter covered the phone so Fenstermacher wouldn't hear him reply. “I'm not leaving you alone in here.”

“I'm not alone. There's a dozen people.” Finster gestured to the medical staff. “What the hell do you think I'm gonna do? Last time I was alone with Captain America, I locked him in with Χ23 and it's not my fault he got out! How am I supposed to prove I'm not like them, if nobody gives me a chance?”

Sutter shook his head and then spoke into the phone again. “Five has volunteered to babysit it. Should we let him?” Whatever the answer was, it seemed to surprise him. “If you say so, but _I_ don't trust the little bastard as far as I can throw him. Fine. I'm on my way.” He ended the call, and turned to Finster with a disapproving frown. “If I hear you've put a _toenail_ out of line, if you speak a _word_ you shouldn't, I will have you _shot_. Do you understand?”

“You won't,” Finster replied, meeting his gaze evenly. “Dad needs me too much.”

“I said, do you _understand_?” Sutter repeated through his teeth.

“Yes, _Sir_ ,” said Finster, with a sarcastic salute.

Sutter turned away from him. “Bleed him dry!” he ordered the medical staff, and left the door swinging behind him.

Steve shut his eyes so he couldn't watch his blood run through the plastic tubing. He hated the sight of his own blood. He'd hated it when the SSR had taken samples during the war, he'd refused to let SHIELD even try, and now here he was again, lying there while it slowly trickled out of him. He'd never minded seeing other people's blood, but his own was, for whatever reason, very different.

“Talk to him, Mr. Finster,” one of the attendants urged. “We need to know he's awake.”

Steve wondered whether they'd be forced to stop if he pretended to pass out. Not likely. Probably they'd just do something like poke him with a cattle prod and see if he jumped.

“Right, right,” said Finster. “Captain Rogers. Ever heard of Isaiah Bradley?”

“No,” said Steve. The name wasn't familiar, and he figured it was probably some pop-culture thing he wasn't up to date on. If he were going to talk to Finster, there were other things he wanted to know. Finster probably wouldn't _tell_ him, but it was worth a shot. “Why doesn't Sutter trust you?” he asked. If Sutter didn't trust the clones, there might be a way for Steve to use that when he tried to escape.

“That's none of your business,” said Finster immediately. “Although for your information it's your _fault_.”

That was an odd answer. “My fault?” asked Steve.

“Yeah.” Finster scowled. “We weren't even gonna bother with you for months yet, but then Rudy had to go and contact you, and Luke had to sing like the fat lady because some Sergeant Pepper has a house full of pet spiders! Next thing, you're showing up at Cheyenne and now the government's on our backs, and I was the one who tried to _kill_ you but Sutter doesn't trust _any_ of us anymore!”

Steve processed the implications of that. Finster had said it was none of his business but had then told him anyway, because he'd managed to strike a personal nerve. If Steve were going to find out anything more, he needed to use _that_. What would _Natasha_ say in order to get information in this situation?

“Rudy was a traitor?” he tried. “That's kind of disappointing. We assumed he was a trap.”

“Rudy was a selfish jackass,” snarled Finster. He began pacing the room, ranting. “After Luke had his accident, Rudy was supposed to be the next host, just because he's half an inch taller than me!” Finster was clearly deeply bitter about this. “And he didn't _want_ it. I told Dad, I'll do it! Pick me! But he was set on Rudy, and Rudy decided to bring the whole thing down. I don't even know what he thought we were _made_ for. And then there's Luke. We're not supposed to have bullshit like phobias. I was the only one who turned out the way we were supposed to, but I'm the last choice, because I'm the _short_ one!” He paused, seething, then folded his arms and leaned back against the wall. “And that's all I'm going to say,” he added. “You can't trick me.”

“I had to try,” said Steve. He leaned back and shut his eyes – holding his head up was starting to get difficult. In his head, however, he went over everything Randy had just said, trying to commit it to memory. He'd learned that 'RedWolff06' had decided to talk to them because Rudy Finster didn't want to be the next home of Fenstermacher's brain. He'd learned that he was going to be kept alive for at least a while longer, so his blood could be used to make more clones. He'd learned that Sutter didn't trust Fenstermacher's own clones anymore, and that Sutter and Finster personally disliked one another. Was any of that information going to be useful in an escape?

At the moment he didn't know, and wasn't in a position to be able to figure it out. The world around him was getting hazy around the edges. Steve thought he heard one of the attendants tell him to keep talking, but then he slipped away into silent unconsciousness.

* * *

Steve woke up strapped to a bed in a hospital room. He could hear the soft, regular beep of a machine monitoring his heart, and see greyish light filtering in a window. At first his eyes refused to focus, but they recovered quickly, and he made out rain hitting the glass behind a Venetian blind. Steve felt light-headed and extremely hungry, and there was a bandage with a pad of cotton on his arm where the needle had gone in.

Sutter was standing at the end of the bed. “Good morning, Captain,” he said.

Steve took a visual inventory of the man: Sutter was wearing different clothes than yesterday – possibly the same pair of khakis, but sneakers instead of boots and a slightly oversized blue sweatshirt with the gold letters _UCSF_ across the front. Neither his hair nor his beard had grown appreciably. Steve had probably been out for about a day.

“Losing a third of your blood volume qualifies for stage three hypovolemic shock,” Sutter observed. “Most people would die without a transfusion. You just sleep for twenty hours and feel like shit in the morning.” He smiled, shaking his head. “You're a remarkable creature, Captain.”

Steve had been called a _remarkable creature_ before, but never in quite that tone. Scientists at SHIELD had said that to him, but Sutter sounded as if he were talking _about_ Steve, like a tour guide pretending to talk to a zoo animal while actually addressing a human audience. The clones were nothing but numbers to Sutter. Steve was _slightly_ more of a person in his eyes, but not by much.

Somebody knocked on the door, and an orderly peeked in. “Dr. Sutter? We've brought breakfast for Captain Rogers.”

“Excellent, bring it in,” said Sutter. “Don't worry, Captain, we're aware of your dietary needs. Imagine feeding a few hundred of you! We're going to have to take over the world fast, or we'll go broke just paying our grocery bills.”

The orderly brought in a cart. The food was simple – orange juice, coffee, eggs, and some kind of crescent-shaped pastry – but there was lots of it. Had Steve been alone in the room, he would have stuffed it in his mouth as fast as possible. With Sutter at the foot of the bed watching, he ate slowly and politely, counting to be sure he chewed each mouthful thirty times while his stomach gurgled in impotent complaint.

“Are you going to bleed me again today?” he asked. That would make a certain amount of sense, actually – it would keep him too weak to think of escaping. Steve wondered if this were how cows felt about being milked.

“Not today,” Sutter said. “Even you couldn't take that. We'll give you a few days to recover properly before we do it again. In the mean time, however, there's something I thought you might like to see.”

Steve paused in chewing a mouthful of pastry. “Are you going to give me a tour?” he asked.

“A tour and the key to the front door?” Sutter laughed. “I'm afraid not, Captain, but I _do_ want to show you some of our work. I'm a bit of a show-off,” he added, not sounding particularly ashamed of it. “Ralph says it's my greatest character flaw, but you can imagine I don't get a lot of chances to brag when we're hiding in our closed-off little world up here. You don't have to come if you don't want to,” he added. “You can lie in bed all day, but that doesn't seem like it would be very Captain America of you.”

Steve looked down at his hospital gown. “You got some pants I could wear?”

An attendant brought Steve a bright red jumpsuit. He noted as he put it on that if he managed to scape, it would stand out in the black and brown of the burned-out forest like a parrot in a crowd of crows. Then another troop of clones – or at least, soldiers in the same black uniforms and helmets – surrounded them and put Steve back in enormous handcuffs, and with Sutter in the lead they took Steve down a hallway.

Sutter continued talking as they went. “Ralph's not impressed by anything, ever,” he said. “I guess that's fair enough for a man who's on his third body. But this is only my first, and when I've figured out a secret that eluded everybody else for three quarters of a century, I'd like to have a _little_ recognition for that. You must admit, you're uniquely qualified to appreciate what I've accomplished. Maybe even more so than I am.”

Steve wondered if Sutter had ever met Tony Stark. Probably not. There would have been a violent explosion when their combined egos reached critical mass.

The soldiers led Steve into a narrow observation room at the end of the hall, and fanned out to stand in a semicircle while Sutter waved for Steve to join him at the window. This looked down onto a brightly lit room with concrete floors and cinder block walls. Its original function was impossible to guess at, but it had been retrofitted with two rows of seven machines that were similar to tanning beds, if tanning beds were attached to a myriad of other machinery and had metal cuffs to strap large men into them. Only one was going to be in use today. Attendants in scrubs were washing out the interior with alcohol, checking connections, and tweaking settings.

“The gamma ray treatment was particularly tricky,” Sutter went on. “It has to be very precisely calibrated – no wonder Banner screwed up, especially when he didn't know that the serum had to be personalized. We've got it down to the decimal point,” he said with a proud grin. He sounded like a kid showing off his science fair project. “Vita-Rays! Sounds like something out of _Flash Gordon_.”

One of the staff gave a satisfied nod and called to the others. Another door opened, and three soldiers led Roger into the room.

Roger was naked except for a pair of briefs. His piercings had all been removed, and his tattoos were visible – the burning rose, the line of Gothic letters, the Viking ship, and a hitherto unseen death's head moth below his navel. Roger had wanted so desperately to make himself look tough, but right now he only looked tiny and terrified. A lump hardened in Steve's throat. Roger was a jerk, but he didn't deserve this. No human being deserved to be anyone's lab rat.

Roger didn't resist as the attendants cuffed him to the prepared bed. He just stared blankly at the ceiling – then turned his head a little, and seemed to notice Steve standing there watching from above. His muscles tensed, but one of the staff members spoke to him, and he relaxed again. Steve wondered what he was thinking. Did he believe that Steve had come to watch him punished?

One of the men gave Roger an injection. “Antibiotics,” said Sutter. “There's always a risk of the gamma having an effect on any bacteria that might be present in the body. The last thing we need are hulk germs.” He seemed to find this idea more funny than worrying.

The attendants re-checked the cuffs, and then closed the lid of the machine.

Howard Stark's control panel for Project Rebirth in 1943 had taken up much of a large room. All HYDRA needed in 2015 was a laptop computer. One of the men entered a few keystrokes and waited a moment, then looked up at the window and gave Sutter a thumbs-up. Sutter nodded, and the man began typing again.

A thrumming sound filled the air as the machinery whirred to life. The floor began to vibrate under Steve's feet.

“The entire complex runs on geothermal power from the volcano,” said Sutter cheerfully. “More electricity than we could ever possibly need, and it doesn't cost us a cent.”

A line of brilliant light shone out of the tiny crack between the two halves of the machine. Steve had not been able to hear what the staff were saying to each other through the thick glass, but even over the building rumble of machines he could hear Roger screaming. Had Steve himself sounded like that in Howard and Erskine's machine? No wonder they'd wanted to pull the plug.

Steve shut his eyes. He had to escape from here before they could bleed him again, and he had to get Roger out before they could try whatever the 'adamantium procedure' was. Now might be the last time they saw one another... was there a way to get down to the room below? Maybe he could use Sutter as a hostage and fight his way past the clones to find a staircase? By the time the idea was formed, Steve had already thought of six ways it could fail disastrously. Maybe he could just go through the window.? It was only about thirty feet down. Landing on the concrete would suck, but Steve had survived worse. There were no soldiers down there and the medical staff didn't look like fighters. The glass, however, was at least an inch thick, and reinforced with wire mesh.

The roar of machines suddenly died away and there was an absurd _ding_ , like the sound a microwave would make to announce that it was done cooking. Steve opened his eyes. The light from the machine had banished. People gathered around the man with the laptop, and spoke in low voices while pointing to things on the screen. Somebody laughed.

A few more minutes went by while tests were made and scans were taken. Then, finally, they opened the lid.

The transformation was astonishing. No wonder Peggy had stared. Roger had gained a foot in height and had at least doubled his weight. His tattoos had been stretched and distorted by his growth until they were barely recognizable. What struck Steve most of all, however, was Roger's _face_ : he was red-cheeked and exhausted, eyes barely open, hair sticking to his forehead from sweat, and Steve could suddenly remember with absolute crystal clarity exactly what that moment had felt like. He remembered lying there completely limp, feeling as if he'd just had a ton of weight lifted from his chest only to find that his chest _itself_ was now unbearably heavy. He remembered blundering around the room falling over things, with no idea how strong he was or where his limbs were. And he remembered the incredible rush when he'd tested himself, as if he could suddenly run a hundred miles, or climb a building, or fly if he wanted to.

The staff opened the cuffs and helped Roger sit up. One listened to his back with a stethoscope, while Roger himself just stared down at his altered body in shock. Steve remembered that, too.

“We'll give him twenty-four hours to recover, and then take him for the adamatium,” said Sutter calmly. “Plating the skeleton increases the subject's strength and grants immunity to bone injury – although magnets can be a bit of a problem, as you discovered in Colorado. The only patients who ever survived were Χ23 and her donor, but we're working on it.”

Roger looked up at the window again, panting hard. Steve met his gaze and nodded once, very briefly, trying to tell him that this was normal – as far as it went – and he would be okay. Roger nodded back and got unsteadily to his feet. Two medics caught his arms, urging him to sit down again.

There was a wheeled cabinet a few feet away, full of tools for making adjustments to the machines. With its contents it probably weighed more than skinny Roger had. He looked at it for a moment, then tensed, hesitated, and lunged for it. The attendants tried to dogpile him but weren't fast enough – Roger grabbed the cabinet and heaved it up at the window.

Steve ducked, expecting it to come through in a shower of glass, but it bounced off and fell, leaving behind a spiderweb of cracks. That was all Steve needed. He didn't stop to think, because if he'd done that, Sutter and the guards would have had time to think, too. He just held up his arms in front of him and used the oversized cuffs for a shield as he threw himself at the glass, and crashed right through it.

There was a burst of gunfire, but none of the bullets hit him. Steve landed hard on the concrete, forcing the air out of his lungs in a rush. For a moment he lay there, gasping for oxygen and mentally scolding himself – when he'd jumped from the elevator at the Triskelion, he'd had his vibranium shield to absorb the brunt of the impact. Here it had gone straight into flesh and bone, and super-soldier or not, that would leave some bruises.

“ _Hell_ yeah!” he heard Roger shout. There was a scream of tormented metal as Roger ripped the bed off its bolts and threw it at the medical staff. They dived out of the way.

“Forget them!” Steve panted, grabbing at another bed to scrape himself off the floor. “Door!”

There was a rack against one wall that held a set of six large brushed metal tanks, each almost the size of a man, for oxygen or anesthetic. Steve and Roger pushed that ahead of themselves, using it as a battering ram against the door. The door sprang open, and the clone soldiers on the other side opened fire. Their bullets bounced harmlessly off the empty tanks. Steve and Roger plowed into them, knocking down several, and then left the rack and ran. On one side Steve noticed a door to a stairwell.

“Roger!” he shouted, and pushed the door open.

“Where are we going?” Roger asked as they ran through.

“Hell if I know!” Steve said. “You're the one who decided to start throwing things. Help me get these cuffs off!”

Roger got his fingers into one and wrenched on it as hard as it could. Metal squealed, then bent. “You _nodded_ ,” Roger said. “I thought you were telling me to go!”

“I was telling you that I know what it feels like!” Steve pulled his arms free and shook them.

“Oh, so what did _you_ want me to do?” Roger demanded. “Just sit there and let them slice me open or whatever the hell it was Sutter decided to use me for?”

“Shut up!” said Steve. “We gotta go.”

He could hear footsteps – soldiers were coming up the stairs from the basement. Steve and Roger couldn't go down, so they went up. Steve took the steps three at a time, while Roger scrambled after him on all fours. An alarm was blaring down, and red lights were flashing on the ceiling.

On the top floor, they burst through the doors to find an empty hallway. “There's got to be another way down,” Steve said. “Find one. A fire escape. Something soft to land on. Anything. The first thing you see, call me and we'll do that, even if it seems like a dumbass idea, okay?”

“Works for me!” Roger tried to kick open the first door on the right, missed, and put his foot right through the drywall next to it. He yanked it out again, cursing. Steve, meanwhile, tried the door on the left and found it locked. Normally he tried to avoid breaking things, even in enemy territory, but there was no time now – he yanked the knob, broke the lock, and took a look inside.

The room was an office. There was nobody in it, only bookshelves and cork boards with maps and diagrams pinned to them, including an elevation of the volcano with the location of the base and the magma reservoir that provided their power. A big window next to that looked out on the compound, showing them a view of the burned forest on the mountain slopes. The first thing Steve had seen, however, was a framed photograph on one of the shelves. He went up and grabbed it. It showed Fenstermacher and another man, shorter and balding, with a monocle, on either side of what was recognizably Loki's scepter.

Steve's heart beat a little faster. SHIELD had impounded the scepter after the Battle of New York, and Steve had assumed it was safe and forgotten about it. But it wasn't safe – of course it wasn't. It was somewhere in the hands of HYDRA.

Then something else caught his eye. At the far end of the room was a big wooden desk with a leather chair, both of them clearly antiques. Probably Fenstermacher's, since he seemed to be in charge of the installation. But mounted on the wall above the chair, like somebody's trophy, was a familiar bullseye of red, white, and blue.

With the framed photo still in his hand, Steve crossed the room in two giant strides and tore the shield down from the wall, then rapped on it with his knuckles to make sure it was the real thing. A replica, made of ordinary metal, would have rung like a bell. The vibranium, when hit by anything but more of itself, made a dull _thwonk_ noice and then immediately fell silent. Steve slipped his arms into the straps and stood up straight, and despite being dressed in a red jumpsuit more fit for an extra on _Star Trek_ , he immediately felt more like Captain America again.

“Dude,” said Roger, and Steve looked to find him leaning on the door frame with one arm, panting – he still had nothing on but briefs that were now rather too small. “How do you _do_ this?” Roger asked. “When I run I feel like I won't be able to stop! Did you see what I did to that wall?”

“I went right through a shop window my first time out,” Steve said. “You'll ad...” He stopped there, his voice dying in his throat as his eyes found the person on the other side of the open office door. “Oh.”


	17. Sarah Kinney

Steve did not panic – panic was not in his nature, and after the initial startled moment passed, he realized the woman behind the door was not worth panicking over anyway. She looked terrified, crouched on the other side of the door so Roger wouldn't see her through its small window, an unlit cigarette hanging forgotten in the corner of her mouth. She was in her fifties, thin and bony, with graying dark hair gathered into a ponytail at her nape, and was dressed in a white lab coat over a burgundy tank top with  _ Stanford _ written across the front. A pair of plastic-rimmed reading glasses were slightly askew on her narrow nose, and she was staring directly back at Steve, clearly unsure what to do about his presence.

“They're coming,” Roger said, perking up. He quickly shut the office door and turned the lock – just as the woman, realizing Steve had seen her, straightened up. The two came suddenly face to face, and Roger let out a very undignified shriek of surprise. “Jesus fucking Christ!” he exclaimed, grabbing at his chest. “How long have you been there?”

“I was here when you came in,” the woman replied, holding her hands up to protect herself. She looked Roger over for a moment, then realized she was staring at a large man in nothing but his underwear, and quickly forced herself to meet his eyes. “Ralph said Captain America was here,” she said cautiously, glancing at Steve for a moment before turning back to Roger. “Who are  _ you _ ?”

“I'm Roger. Φ20,” he said.

“Who are _you_?” asked Steve.

“This is Dr. Kinney,” Roger told him, at the same time as the woman said, “Sarah Kinney.”

The door rattled, and the face of a bearded orderly appeared in the window. “They're in Finster's office!” the man shouted.

“Shit,” muttered Steve. Was there another way out of the office? Maybe they could use Dr. Kinney as a hostage. “Barricade the door,” he told Roger. “And keep an eye on her.”

Roger looked around for something to use, then decided to just start tipping the bookshelves over and pile them in front of the door. He laughed as he did it, enjoying either his own strength or just the crash and mess as they fell. Steve probably shouldn't have smiled, but he couldn't stop himself. He remembered _that_ feeling, too – like he was _invincible_ , like he could suddenly do anything he wanted after a life of never being able to do anything at all.

While Roger threw furniture and the people outside banged on the door, Steve started searching the room. He wasn't surprised to hear that this was Fenstermacher's own office – only the head honcho would have had Steve's shield as a decoration. Hopefully there'd be something in here that he could use to bring HYDRA to justice. There was a laptop computer sitting closed on the desk. Steve snatched that up and grabbed a carrying case to put it in. The case was evidently for a different computer, as it was much too big, but it would do. Steve put the photo with the scepter in there with it, and kept looking.

“Are you two trying to _escape_?” asked Dr. Kinney. She didn't sound as if she didn't believe it – she sounded as if she thought they were doing a terrible job. Steve had to admit that was a pretty fair assessment.

“That was the plan,” Roger agreed, hefting a leather armchair onto the top of his furniture pile.

“Insofar as we had one,” Steve said. He opened and closed desk drawers. File folders. A bottle of Rhönwurz. A stack of spy novels. An address book – he grabbed that and tossed it in the case with the laptop. A key ring with keys.

The people in the hallway had found something to use as a battering ram. The whole room shook as they slammed it into the door. Roger's haphazard barricade wouldn't hold for long, Steve thought, especially if there were clone soldiers out there.

Kinney approached and put a tentative hand on Steve's arm. “I'll help you,” she said. “I know how to turn off the electric fence.”

Steve had forgotten about the electric fence, but she was right – they'd need to get past that. He raised his head and looked carefully at Kinney's face. This past week or so had badly shaken Steve's faith in his own ability to tell when he was being lied to, but he was pretty sure that offers like hers always came with a price tag. “What do you want from us in exchange?” he asked.

“Take Laura with you,” said Kinney.

Steve licked his lips. His gut wanted to say _no_ – Χ23 was the most dangerous person they'd met on this investigation. They'd fought her twice, and escaped only by ingenuity and good luck. Third time was the charm, people said. At the same time, however, he knew Laura wasn't the same kind of order-following machine as the clone soldier. He'd heard her speak and seen her react like a _person_ , same as Bucky had, and that _person_ needed help.

“Who's Laura?” asked Roger, who hadn't been there for either incident.

“Laura is my daughter,” Kinney replied firmly, then shrugged. “For all intents and purposes.”

It was the way she said the word _daughter_ that made up Steve's mind. “Okay,” he said. “Show us.”

For a moment Kinney's face lit up in a relieved smile, then went serious again. “The power plant is in the basement. So is Laura's room. If we can get downstairs, the key is in the desk.”

Steve looked at the drawer he had open and snatched the keys out of it. He held them up for Kinney to see, and she nodded.

The room shook again. “You _guys_!” Roger said, leaning on his barricade to try and keep it up. “They're gonna get in!”

There were no obvious escape routes. “Window,” Steve said.

“Fire escape!” Kinney pointed.

Steve stuffed the keys in a pocket of his jumpsuit and ran to open the window. The metal balcony and stairs on the side of the building were not unlike something that would have been found in New York. Like the rest of the hospital, they appeared to be in reasonably good repair, but as soon as Steve started to climb out, soldiers stepped out from behind the cars parked below and opened fire. Quickly, Steve brought his shield up and rolled back into the room as bullets bounced off it. God, he'd missed having that protection in the past couple of weeks!

“Great idea!” snarled Roger, pulling his arm out of Dr. Kinney's hands – she'd grabbed him when she heard the shots, and dug her fingers in hard enough to leave red marks. “Now what? Want to try the _other_ window?”

There _was_ another window – as the most important person in the building, Fenstermacher had a corner office with a view of the mountain, and despite Roger's sarcasm, it might not be a completely terrible idea. This one wouldn't have handy stairs, but it might not be as closely guarded. Steve undid the lock and swung it open.

“Oh, my god, he _is_ ,” said Roger, rolling his eyes. “He's trying the _other window_.”

“Shut up,” Steve told him. Below the window was a clump of what had once been trees but were now charred skeletons, rising out of a thicket of new suckers growing up from the roots. Not the best spot to land, but relatively hidden. It was worth a try. “All right, since nobody has any better ideas,” he glared at Roger, “let's go.”

“It's fifty feet down!” Kinney protested.

“So hang on to me,” Steve said. He would recover quickly, and could cushion her fall. “Roger, you go first.”

Roger stared at him. “You want me to jump out of a fifth-floor window in my underwear?” he asked.

“Are you telling me that's _not_ something you've always wanted to do?” Steve said.

“Not when I might get _shot_ , no!”

The room shook again. The barricade of furniture was starting to topple. The armchair fell from the top and bounced across the floor.

“So take this.” Steve offered Roger the shield.

Roger's eyes went wide, and he reached for it eagerly – then hesitated. “Are you sure?” he asked doubtfully.

“I trust you,” said Steve.

Roger was silent for a moment, then grabbed the shield and put his arm through the straps, pausing a moment to admire how it looked. “All I need now is the costume,” he said proudly.

“And a haircut,” Steve couldn't resist.

“Geronimo!” said Roger, and dived out the window. Steve winced, hearing a crash of foliage when he landed, but there were no more shots – that was encouraging. He scooped up Dr. Kinney, bridal style, and followed. Kinney hid her face in his shoulder and held on tight to his jumpsuit as they dropped, but this time Steve was properly prepared, and landed as softly as a cat on the damp soil below.

“Which way?” he asked Kinney, setting her down on her feet.

He could _see_ her pounding heartbeat in the flickering skin on her temples. “There's a fire exit on the west side of the building.”

“Oh, good,” Roger nodded. “Where all the clone troopers are.”

That was the side of the building where the fire escape was. “If this were going to be easy, it wouldn't require _super_ heroes,” said Steve. He kept a hand on Kinney's shoulder for a moment to make sure she wasn't going to collapse, then pulled his shield back off Roger's arm. “Give me that.”

“You said you trusted me!” Roger pouted.

“I do, but I need this.” If anybody were going to be carrying a giant target, it should be Steve himself. He took off the carrying bag with the laptop, photograph, and address book, and handed it to Roger. “I'm going to distract them. I need you guys to open the fire exit. I'll join you there. If I don't make it, Roger, you take Dr. Kinney and... and Laura, and get out.”

“What do I do once I'm out?” Roger asked. “There's a million miles of dead trees between us and civilization!”

“I don't know. Find a phone and try to get in touch with the others.” Roger probably knew Toby's or Megan's cell phone numbers, although the roaming charges for an American phone receiving a call in Argentina would probably be horrendous. “Try to get a ride to Buenos Aires. Find some pants. You'll think of something.” Steve crept around the corner. The squad of soldiers were still there, waiting for somebody to try the fire escape again. He could see them tense in response to the sound of footsteps on metal, but they did not fire.

“They're gone!” somebody shouted from overhead. “They went out the other window!”

Now or never. Steve wound up and flung his shield at the nearest soldier. It bounced off the man's helmet with another _thwok._ The people who'd made the _Captain America_ films back in the 40's had hated the noise vibranium made when it hit something – they'd always dubbed it over with a more dramatic metallic _clang_. It did the job, however, and the clone reeled back into the man next to him, his neck broken. The shield itself fell to the ground and rolled in an arc back towards Steve. He dived for it and scooped it up, then ran around _behind_ the soldiers, drawing their fire so that Roger and Kinney could make their way along the wall.

The next few minutes were chaos and instinct – throw shield, dodge, roll, catch, repeat. More soldiers appeared on the fire escape and began shooting, but Steve, with his shield over his head, ran in among the clones on the ground and they were forced to stop. They wouldn't shoot each _other_ , Steve realized. That might be useful information later. Maybe there weren't yet enough of them that individuals could be considered expendable. That was why Fenstermacher had approved of trying the adamantium process on Roger instead of using another clone. If they could get out of here and back to civilization, there was still a chance they could stop this.

The clones on the ground slung their weapons and attacked Steve with their hands and feet. This was the first time Steve had paid attention to _how_ they fought, and he was almost disappointed. The clones had some basic training, but lacked finesse, depending too much on sheer brute strength. They fought like _big men_. Steve had learned to fight long _before_ he'd become a big man. He knew how to feint, how to redirect a fist, how to use an opponent's own mass against him. Surrounded by so many, he was almost certainly going down, but he would go down _fighting_.

One of the clones managed to get him in a headlock. Two or three more moved in to grab his limbs. Steve kicked and flailed blindly, fighting them off as best he could. There weren't as many as had taken him in the pampas, and he had his shield now. The ground here was pavement instead of swamp. He could hold them off a little longer.

Then there was the distant crack of a gunshot, and the clone holding Steve's head went limp. He didn't waste time wondering who'd fired or why, he just grabbed the man's arms and heaved his body into two others, knocking both down. A third he hit the chest with the edge of his shield – ribs went _crunch_ as they broke, and the attacker dropped to his knees, clearing Steve's field of view. There was Roger, who had taken somebody's gun and was picking off soldiers while Dr. Kinney rattled the fire door.

“I told you guys to _go_!” Steve said. One of the clones he'd felled was getting up again. Steve punched them man in the face.

“ _You_ have the fucking _keys_!” Roger replied, shooting the clone as he staggered backwards.

That was right – Steve had put Fenstermacher's keys in his pocket, hadn't he? He kicked another soldier in the chest as he tried to get up again, then grabbed Roger and ran to join Kinney at the door. The soldiers on the balcony had gone back inside one the melee began, but reinforcements would definitely be on the way. Roger provided cover while Kinney found the right key, and then she had to give the keys back to Steve because her hands were shaking too badly to unlock the door.

Steve threw the door open. A flight of steps descended into darkness, looking like the throat of some enormous animal.

“You go first,” Steve told Roger – Roger had the gun, so he should be the first to meet anyone waiting for them down there. Kinney went next, and Steve brought up the roar with his shield, to protect them from anyone following.

“There's another way out besides that fire exit, right?” Steve asked. He had to shout in Kinney's ear, because the hospital basement was quivering with the roar of unseen machinery, drowning out normal voices. If there _wasn't_ another way out, they would be trapped. The soldiers would surely be waiting for them outside.

“Of course there is!” Kinney yelled back, but she didn't offer any more information. For the moment she was utterly focused on her own mission, looking straight ahead and walking with a determined set to her shoulders, impatient with the production Roger made of running from doorway to doorway, pointing his gun at nothing. Steve suspected that if it weren't for the noise, they'd be able to hear Roger humming the _Mission Impossible_ theme.

As well as being loud, the basement of the hospital was warm and unusually humid, and Steve could soon feel sweat running down his back. The hallway was lit by the same kind of unpleasant, slightly greenish fluorescent tubes as the underground facility at Cheyenne Mountain. There were rows of doors on both sides of the hallway, but all of these were shut and locked, lacking windows of even signs to indicate what was in them. Kinney passed them all by.

“That's the power plant,” she shouted, pointing to a double door closed with a padlock. Both the noise and the heat were particularly intense here, and the doors were visibly vibrating. There was no sign there, either, but a shadow in the paint suggested that there used to be.

Kinney moved on, and then stopped a few doors down on the other side of the hall. The door here had a slot at the bottom, so that a tray of food could be passed through without the door having to be opened.

“Here!” She held out her hand to Steve. “Give me the keys!”

Steve turned them over with a knot in his gut, hoping he was doing the right thing. They had to guarantee that Kinney was trustworthy. Maybe she really did want to save the woman she regarded as her daughter, or maybe she was leading them into a trap. Steve had decided to trust her, and now it was too late to change his mind. He would simply have to deal with whatever happened next.

Roger hovered close as Kinney struggled, hands still shaking, to unlock the door. She glanced up at him, then back at what she was doing, licking her lips and gritting her teeth as she tried to force her fingers to cooperate. Eventually Steve took pity on her. He reached for Roger's arm and gently guided him away.

“Give her some room!” he said. “Anyway, we don't want to scare whoever's in there!” Χ23 had been violent enough when she was merely following orders. Steve didn't want to imagine what she'd be like if she thought she were cornered.

“Come on. Come _on_!” Kinney pleaded, apparently talking to herself. She finally got the key into the slot, turned it, and the lock opened. “Laura!” she called out, opening the door a crack to peek in. “Laura, it's me!”

“Sarah?” asked a voice from inside.

Kinney opened the door wide. Inside was a small, undecorated room with a concrete floor and cinder block walls – a prison cell, with one bed, a tiny table, and absolutely no other furniture or ornament. At one end a metal wall, like the type that divided stalls in public washrooms, cordoned off what must have been the toilet. There were no windows, just a fluorescent fixture in the ceiling without even a switch to turn it on and off. The slot in the door meant the inmate could be fed without even seeing the face of her keeper, and the noise in the hallway was muffled by the thick walls. This was an isolation chamber.

Sitting on the little bed with her knees tucked up to her chest was Laura – LJH-Χ23.

This was the first time Steve had really been able to _look_ at her, in full light and without having to avoid her attacks. She was younger than he'd thought, maybe eighteen – certainly younger than Toby, Megan, and Roger, who seemed to be in their early twenties. Her face, which had looked furious and yet empty when he'd seen it in the MRI room or on the ship, was pale and drawn from lack of sun and sleep. When she saw Kinney, however, her face suddenly lit up.

Kinney returned the smile and held out her arms. “Come here,” she said.

“Sarah!” Laura scrambled to her feet and ran to throw her arms around Kinney. “Sutter told me you left again!”

“Don't be silly. I'd never leave without you.” Kinney held the young woman and gently rocked both of them back and forth, stroking Laura's short dark hair. “Not my munchkin. Not ever.”

Steve had to swallow a lump in his throat. He was confident now – it was okay to trust Kinney. He'd been _right_ about Laura: she _was_ a human being, even if somebody had tried to tear her humanity out of her as they'd tried with Bucky. She could still be helped, and that meant Bucky could, too, if Steve could only _find_ him.

Kinney kissed the top of Laura's head and then held her back at arm's length. “Listen to me, okay?” she said. “We're going to get out of here.”

“What? Where to?” Laura's eyes widened in fear. “Sutter said if I...”

“ _Forget_ what Sutter said!” Kinney told her. “Sutter's a liar. All he cares about is having something to show off. You are _not_ his Nobel Prize, Laura.” She put an arm around Laura's shoulders and led her into the hallway, where the men were waiting.

“This is Roger and Steve!” said Kinney, now having to shout again over the machinery noise. “They're here to help! We're going to go with them!”

“Hey,” said Roger, raising one hand in greeting. “We're superheroes. We can lift _cars_.”

Laura frowned at them, and Steve waited for her to remember that she'd fought him twice and nearly killed him, but there was no hint of recognition on her face. She didn't know what was going on, but she was willing to follow Dr. Kinney.

“All right,” said Steve, “show us how to shut down the fence.” Once they were out, he could think about finding Sam and the others. Then they could deal with Fenstermacher. Then he could get back to looking for other HYDRA bases and finding Bucky. For a man who was technically unemployed, Steve Rogers had one hell of a to-do list.

The hallway was still empty as they backtracked to the power plant door. Kinney's hands were steadier now that she knew Laura was safe – she got the key into the padlock on the first try, and opened it. It was now Steve who was becoming nervous. There should have been people down here by now. HYDRA _must_ know, or at least suspect, where the group had gone. If nobody were here to try and stop them, there had to be a reason.

The doors opened onto a catwalk around a big underground room, where the noise and heat were all but unbearable. On the floor below were six giant turbines, roaring and pumping out steme that made the air as hot and damp as a sauna, far worse than the tropical atmosphere of Rio de Janeiro. Roger made a _whoof_ sound as it hit them. The clouds of vapor made the whole place look like the set of a horror movie. Steve had an unsettling feeling that some skeletal alien monster might leap out at them.

“The switches are down here,” said Kinney, leading the way. She had sneakers on. Everybody else was barefoot. The metal was warm and gritty under Steve's toes.

On the opposite side of the generator room was a metal door, standing slightly open. Kinney opened it the rest of the way, revealing a small room in which a startled security guard had been sitting reading a fishing magazine. The man jumped to his feet, and Steve stepped up and hit him once. That was all it took – he fell down immediately.

Above the desk was and a wall of switches, all labeled in Spanish: _viviendas_ , _hospital_ , _tratamiento de aguas_... and finally, _valla de contención_. Kinney took the handle and switched it to off.

“Is that _it_?” Roger asked. Apparently he'd been expecting something more impressive.

“If we don't throw any of the others, they might not notice right away,” Kinney explained.

“They've already noticed,” Steve said darkly – he was positive of that. “We're not gonna like finding out what they've decided to do about it. Everybody stay on your guard.”

“We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese,” said Roger.

They made their way back around the room, Steve in the lead with his shield. His steps slowed as they drew near to the double doors. Through the clouds of steam Steve could see that they were standing ajar – but hadn't they left them wide open when they came in? He moved slower yet, squinting as if that would help hi see through the vapor. Was that a human figure he could see standing in front of one door?

Steve raised a hand to signal the others to stop, forgetting for a moment that they were not soldiers. The cloud of steam thinned for a moment, and Steve's jaw tensed – there was not one, but _several_ figures standing in the doors. In back were four in the black fatigues and helmets of the clone soldiers. In front was a smaller man in civilian clothes, with a patchy dark beard. It was Sutter.

Ordinarily Steve didn't like killing people who hadn't tried to kill him first, but he remembered the way Sutter had referred to the clones as numbers rather than people, the way Kinney had told Laura _you are not his Nobel Prize_. Steve raised his gun, aiming for the man's forehead.

Sutter raised a megaphone to his face. “X23!” his voice boomed.

“No!” Kinney pushed past Steve to shout at him. “Don't you _dare_ talk to her!”

“ _Herkules_ ,” said Sutter, pronouncing it with a distinct German accent.

“ _No_!” Kinney shrieked. She ran towards the door, but the clones and Sutter backed out through it as a unit, and it shut behind them.

Steve prepared to throw his shield, hoping to spring it open again before Sutter could close the lock, but stopped, startled, as somebody grabbed his shoulder. He whirled around to see who it was, and found himself looking at Roger. The other man's face was frozen in an expression of shock, and after a moment that seemed to take a very long time to pass, Steve made himself look away from Roger's terrified eyes, and direct his gaze _down_.

Roger and Laura had been bringing up the rear. She'd looked so tiny next to him. Now she was standing there with the claws on her knuckles extended, and she'd put the ones on her right hand through Roger's abdomen. He'd staggered backwards, and grabbed Steve to keep himself standing.

Time seemed to have stopped. Roger looked like he couldn't figure out what had happened. He stood there a moment, staring at Laura's face. She wore the determined and yet blank expression of a person under mind control. Then Roger, took, looked down at her claws in his gut. She yanked her hand back, and blood bubbled up from the injuries. The gun fell from Roger's grip, and he let go of Steve and collapsed on the walkway.

“Laura!” Kinney came running back to her. “Laura, _no_!”

Steve would have thought that if _anyone_ could bring X23 out of her trance just by shouting her name, it would have been Kinney, but over the relentless thunder of the turbines and fans, Laura couldn't hear her. With Roger down, she rounded on Steve and Kinney, her eyes dilated and empty.

“Stay back!” Steve ordered, pushing Kinney aside. X23 swung at him, and he ducked and rolled, bringing his shield up to cover his head. Her claws scraped it, leaving two long scratches in the paint. “How do I bring her out of it?” he shouted to Kinney.

He could not hear Kinney's reply, but saw her lips form the word _what?_

“ _ How do I bring her out of it _ ?” Steve repeated, shouting as loud as he could. “ _ Jahrhundert _ !” he tried, but that had no effect. The words that put Megan and Toby to sleep and woke them again had been chosen for their reference to a fairy tale. If Sleeping Beauty woke after a hundred years, what counteracted Hercules? Steve could vaguely remember a story about Hercules killing twelve monsters. One of them had been a hydra, oddly enough – he'd burned the stumps of its necks so new heads could not longer grow. What else? There'd been something about a lion... something about cleaning a stable... Steve didn't know the mythology well enough to make a guess.

If he couldn't snap her out of it, maybe he could  _ knock _ her out. “ _ Dornröschen _ !” he tried, but it had no effect. Maybe she couldn't hear him. “ _ Dornröschen _ !” he tried again, louder.

“Laura!” Kinney came running back. Maybe she knew the stop word and could use it herself. She grabbed Laura's arm. “Listen to me! You're stronger th...”

X23 whirled around in response to what she evidently interpreted as an attack. Her claws went through Kinney's neck. There was a spray of blood, and Kinney fell backwards.

Steve expected X23 to come after him next. He didn't want to have to kill her, but there might not be any other choice. A half-dozen options went through his head, all of them horrible. There must be high voltage cables in here, maybe he could electrocute her. If she had a lot of metal inside her body, it would conduct easily. Or maybe he could throw her into the turbines. Those might chew her up so badly that even _she_ couldn't recover.

But she didn't attack him. Instead, she dropped to her knees and grabbed Kinney's lab coat. “Sarah!” she cried. “I'm sorry!  _ Sarah _ !”

Kinney's lips formed the name  _ Laura _ , and then her head rolled to the side.

“No! No! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!” Laura said desperately, tears running down her cheeks. Her clothing was soaked with blood, but she didn't seem to notice. Her claws, still extended, rattled against the catwalk grating as she tried to shake Kinney back to life.

“Laura,” Steve put a hand on her shoulder.

She jumped up and backhanded him. Steve managed to get his shield up in time, but he fell backwards and she jumped on top of him, face furious, hitting him so hard that some of the catwalk bolts came free. The section they were on broke away and landed with a crash on the floor, with Steve, Laura, and Roger still on top of it. Steve's shield was pinned between himself and Laura. He used it to force her off him and got up, but she came at him in a rage, face twisted with anger and grief. There was no purpose in her movements now. She was slashing blindly.

“ _ Laura _ !” he shouted. “Stop!  _ Stop _ !”

“ _ Don't call me that! _ ” she screamed. “ _ Only Sarah calls me that! _ ”

“ _ X23! _ ” he tried. “I'm not your enemy! Sarah wanted you to come with us! We're superheroes! Remember? We're going to take you away from here!”

Laura stumbled forward a couple of steps and then fell to her knees and sat there, still except for her heaving shoulders. She was aware of herself now. She did remember. Her claws slid back into her hands and vanished.

Steve dared to come a little closer. “I didn't make you do this!” he said. “Sutter did!”

She looked up at him. There was blood on her face. Her tears had left tracks in it. She didn't look dangerous now, only broken and ill.

Roger was lying a couple of yards away, and Steve kept one eye on Laura as he went and knelt next to the body, feeling its neck for a pulse. There wasn't one. Steve lowered his head and reached to close Roger's staring eyes. Even when Roger had been _using_ Steve, he'd trusted him to be the good guy – he'd trusted him so much, he'd assumed he could get away with stealing their plane and abandoning them, and he'd been _right_. And now, when he'd trusted Steve to get them out of here, this was where it had ended.

But they couldn't linger here. Steve took back his shield and the case with Fenstermacher's computer, and stood up, then offered Laura his hand.

“Kinney wanted me to get you out of here,” he repeated. “Do you want to come with me?” He wanted her to know she had a choice. She'd never had a choice about anything – she should have one now.

For a moment she continued to sit, unable to make a decision. Then she swallowed hard and took his hand.


	18. Out of the Frying Pan

Steve and Laura _could_ have climbed back up the fallen catwalk to get to the door, but Steve didn't want to lead her past Kinney's body. She would need time to grieve, but it couldn't be right now. Instead, he led her back towards the far end of the room where the switches had been. There was a ladder there so the staff could get up and down to maintain the turbines. They climbed that, and then circled the room in the other direction so they wouldn't have to pass the bodies.

On the way, it did occur to Steve to think about how to shut down the power plant. It wouldn't be hard. He could destroy the turbines, or break the pipes that pumped water down into the volcanic ground to be heated. Without power, the whole operation here would grind to a halt. Doing that, however, would draw attention: Dr. Kinney had said that the point of only shutting down the fence was so that people might not notice until they were already out. He left it alone.

Sutter had locked the doors of the generator room behind him when he left. Steve still had the keys, but the padlock was on the outside, so he just kicked the doors as hard as he could. The lock itself held, but one hinge broke, and the door bent under the blow. Steve knelt down and pushed it further, making the metal groan with the strain, until he got an opening big enough for Laura to crawl through.

“you go first, and let me know if anybody's coming,” he said. If anybody were – well, Laura could certainly take them _physically_ , but whether she was psychologically able to fight right now would be another matter. They'd just have to play it by ear.

She wiggled through and vanished, then Steve heard a metallic squeal followed by the sound of something small and heavy landing on the concrete. The door opened, and there was Laura, claws out – she'd cut the lock.

“Thanks,” Steve told her as he got up.

Despite the blood on her face and the tears in her eyes, a flicker of a smile crossed her mouth. She probably didn't hear the word 'thanks' very often.

They returned to the steps. The door they'd come in by had been closed again, but from the inside it could be opened by a push bar with red letters across it: _SALIDA DE EMERGENCIA SOLAMENTE_. Steve went to open it, then made himself stop. Sutter had to know that Steve had fought Laura before and won, although at the time he'd had other superheroes with him. The people in charge here would probably expect that if anybody came out of the power plant alive, it would be Steve, and this door was the perfect place to set a trap. Steve put an eye up to the gap between the two doors and peeked out.

Sure enough, there were twelve soldiers outside in two rows of six, with their guns trained on the door. Steve had his shield and Laura had demonstrated remarkably accelerated healing, but it was always better to just _not get shot at_ in the first place. He turned to her.

“Dr. Kinney said there was another way out.”

She nodded once, then turned and ran back down the stairs. Steve followed her through the twisted maze of underground hallways, and she showed him the way into a stairwell. This, too, was empty, although a red emergency light was flashing and a fire alarm blaring. Steve took the steps three at a time as Laura scurried beside him on all fours, and when they came to ground level he stopped to peek out the gap in the doors here, too.

In the hallway outside were three clone soldiers. That was a vast improvement over the twelve at the emergency exit.

“I'll take the one at the far end first,” he told Laura. “You get the near one, and whoever's finished first, go for the guy in the middle.”

Again, she nodded once, and Steve could see her muscles tense as she waited.

He counted to three in a whisper, then kicked the door open and threw his shield at the furthest clone before any of them could react. It bounced off the man's body armor, knocking him to the floor, then embedded itself in the wall behind him. Laura dashed forward and dug both sets of claws into the nearer clone's thighs. He fell with a howl of pain. Steve yanked his shield out of the wall and hit the third clone in the back of the head. The man went down, losing his helmet on the way, and Steve was a bit started to see that he had bright pink hair. Laura kicked the man in the face, and he was out.

Laura looked at Steve with a plaintive expression, but said nothing.

“You did great,” Steve assured her. “Now, quick and quiet, that's how we go.”

They crpet down the hall to the end, where there was some kind of archive room beneath where Fenstermacher's office must be, four floors above them. The window on the end opened extra wide for the fire escape – they climbed out and dropped softly onto the soil. The electric fence was only about a

hundred feet away, and beyond that were only a couple of rows of trailers, then freedom. The only thing that stopped Steve was that the area between them and the fence was entirely open ground. They would be easy targets crossing that, but there was nowhere else to go. They would just have to run like hell and hope they made it.

“You ready to get out?” he asked Laura.

She looked terrified. The idea of _getting out_ was clearly foreign to her entire experience of life. But she took a deep breath and said, “yes.”

“Then let's go,” said Steve. “Now!”

He jumped up and ran for the fence. There was a clump of fir trees on the near side of it – these had escaped the fire and still had their needles. They would provide some cover. On the other side of the fence was a rusting utility box, probably containing the fuses and transformers for the fence itself. That could be a hiding place, too. The actual fence was flimsy, just rows of bare cables strung between twelve-foot posts. Once they reached it, they could climb it easily, or even just part the cables and slip through.

Laura reached the trees first, then stopped to wait for Steve.

“Don't!” he shouted to her. “Go! Go!” He crashed through the trees and grabbed the wires.

The next thing he knew he was on his back, staring up at the fir branches while bright spots flickered in front of his eyes. There was a coppery taste in the back of his throat, his scalp felt prickly, and the hand he'd touched the fence with was red and burned. Laura was kneeling over him, shaking him urgently.

“I'm awaaaa... awake. I'm awake,” Steve managed. He blinked at the sky for a moment while his thoughts refused to organize themselves, and then figured out what must have happened. The guard in the switch room had come to and turned the switch back on in the time they'd spent sneaking out of the building. They couldn't climb out now.

Laura took Steve's hand and dragged him upright. She didn't speak, but she clearly didn't have any idea what to do next. _She_ certainly couldn't touch the fence – the metal in her body made her far too vulnerable to the electricity. She was waiting for Steve to come up with something.

He looked up at the fence. It was only twelve feet tall. He might be able to jump that if he got a running start, but he had no idea whether Laura could. If they could climb one of the trees they might be able to jump from there, but the trees looked too young and thin to supper an adult's weight. Maybe they could break out through the gate around the other side of the building, but then they'd have to fight their way through the entire compound. Steve turned to look, just to see if there were something he'd missed.

He was just in time to see the back doors of the hospital open and soldiers in black come pouring out. There was no more time. They had to go now or be re-taken, but they were trapped between the clones and the fence.

Steve had his shield, but the gun Roger had taken from the fallen clone was still in the power plant room with his corpse. Laura had only her claws, but she dropped into a fighting stance as the clones surrounded them.

Steve heard the roar of a rotor, and a helicopter rose from somewhere behind the hospital and hovered over the trees. This was a smaller machine than the big troop-carriers that had come to pick them up on their way through the pampas. A door was open in the side of it, and Steve could see two more soldiers and a man with a bullhorn.

 _Captain America!_ the bullhorn boomed – it was Fenstermacher's voice. _Give yourself up. Come out, drop your weapons and shield, and keep your hands where we can see them._

Steve looked over his shoulder. There were no soldiers on the _other_ side of the fence, but Fenstermacher knew Steve and Laura couldn't go that ay. If only that utility box were on the _near_ side, where Steve could reach it!

He backed up as close to the fence as he dared and brought his shield up to protect both Laura and himself as best he could. Steve had let these people catch him once. He wasn't going to let them do it again. Not when it wouldn't save anybody else.

Steve winced as he heard the sound of a bullet striking metal, but then realized it was the _spang_ of a traditional metal, not the _thwok_ of vibranium. He looked up a little. The soldiers around them were still waiting for their surrender. None of _them_ had fired that shot. It had come from _behind_ , and had apparently hit the utility box. Steve looked over his shoulder, confused.

Three more bullets hit the box in quick succession. One went right through the corner of it, showing that they were coming from a high angle – somewhere up in the hills around the complex. Two more went through the hing on the box door, and the first shot, the one Steve had heard but not seen, had apparently taken the lock off. The door fell open with a creak of rusty metal. A fifth and sixth bullet hit the transformers inside the box, and there was an electric sizzling sound ad a curl of smoke.

The soldiers were closing in, walking slowly but in tight formation and giving an impression of unstoppable inertia, like a tidal wave coming in. The helicopter was descending to land behind the men. Steve had to do something, so it was time to take the risk: he reached out and grabbed the fence wires again. Laura wined, expecting him to be electrocuted again, but this time there was no shock. The shots to the utility box had broken the circuit.

Steve turned to Laura. Her claws had cut through a padlock. They could take this. She understood and stood up straight, setting her shoulders and clenching her fists. The claws slid silently out of her knuckles and one upward swipe sliced the fence apart. Steve dived through. Laura ran after him.

 _Fire!_ Fenstermacher ordered through the bullhorn.

Steve grabbed Laura and they dived behind the first trailer. They crouched there while bullets tore through the flimsy structure, smashing glass and blowing holes in the siding. Laura hissed in surprise as one went through her upper arm, but the wound bled for only a moment, then closed before Steve's eyes.

They couldn't stay there. Steve crawled along the ground to the second line of trailers, with Laura following him. There were only three rows on this side of the hospital, then a dirt road, and then the beginning of the burned forest. Less than five hundred feet to go.

The sound of the helicopter roared up again – it was following them. No more crawling, then. Steve got up and began running a zigzag pattern between the trailers, trying to be difficult to hit. Laura seemed to know well enough to do the same thing, and to take her own path rather than following right behind him. Lines of dust rose up from the ground as bullets rained down. Steve could outrun a racehorse, and Laura wasn't much slower, but the helicopter was soon ahead of them.

Out of other options, Steve wound up and threw his shield. It sailed through the air and struck the helicopter's tail, shearing two blades off the small rotor. The helicopter began to spin out of control. One soldier fell out the open door and went right through the roof of a trailer. Another dropped his gun and grabbed the door frame, hanging on for dear life.

The shield arced back down and landed in the woods ahead of them. Steve focused on the place where the shining metal had vanished into the dark ash and ran as hard as he could. Behind him, the helicopter whirled down to earth as the pilot struggled to land it, and crashed right through the electric fence. The rotor blades tangled in the wires. Cables snapped and went flying, shearing branches off the trees, and the helicopter itself tore free of the rotor and rolled into the smoking utility box.

As he continued to run, with Laura still at his side, Steve heard Fentermacher's voice through the bullhorn again, although this time it wasn't directed at him. “ _Marty, du dumm Hurensohn!_ ” Fenstermacher roared. “ _I told you we should have killed him!_ ”

Then, finally, they were among the trees. Steve snatched up his shield from where it had fallen and then dived to the ground, where he rolled in the dirt and ash to dull the red of his jumpsuit. He smeared more over the surface of the shield so that its bright colours wouldn't show. Laura followed his example, even wiping ashes on her face.

“Up the hill,” Steve told her. They had to find whoever had shot the utility box. Maybe General Cordero or Captain da Silva had contacted the Argentine government and gotten permission to send some people in. Maybe there was somebody else in this area, Peronists or drug farmers – Steve didn't care. The enemy of his enemy was... maybe not automatically his _friend_ , but at least a potential ally.

Somebody was crashing through the dead foliage behind them. Steve didn't want to look back, but he knew he had to – and sure enough, when he turned his head he saw there were soldiers coming. There were four visible, all on foot, and on the tree-covered hill it would be harder to outrun them than it would have been on the flat, open ground. One was closing in on Laura. Did she know? Steve got ready to throw his shield again, trying to figure out the best angle to do so through the trees.

Then he heard a gunshot, and the man dropped. A moment later, a second one fell, also. The remaining two gave up and fell back. Steve and Laura kept going. A little further up the hill, a rock face was exposed in a short but steep cliff, about fourteen fight high, which could provide a view of the HYDRA compound over most of the trees. Lying on top of it was a man in camouflage green. Steve approached warily, but the man suddenly sat up and waved to him.

“Captain Rogers!” he said with a grin.

“Toby!” Steve didn't know how Toby Strong could possibly have gotten there, but it didn't matter – he was too happy to see him. “That was some _damn_ good shooting!”

“I can't take _all_ the credit,” Toby said quickly. He tucked his weapon – one of Natasha's glocks, fitted out with a contraption that had started out as his pen-cap sight but had since been further modified with parts that might've come from a disassembled camera – inside his jacket, then slid down the cliff to land in an ungraceful heap at the bottom. Steve helped him up and then would have hugged him, but Toby held up his hands and shrank back.

“You're filthy,” he said.

Steve looked down at his bloody, ash-covered clothes. “Right, sorry,” he said, and looked around for Laura. She was standing a few yards away, close to a tree, not quite sure whether to approach or not. “It's okay,” Steve told her. “He's with me.”

She took a step towards them, her body language still guarded.

“The camper's over the hill, by the lake,” Toby said, and began climbing the hill. “Are you okay? Who's she? Where's Roger?”

Steve swallowed. He wasn't sure how he wanted to answer those three questions – _he_ might be okay, but Roger was not, and he didn't know what they were going to do about Laura. She'd been helpful in getting away, and she clearly _needed_ help of her own, both physical and psychological, but she was even more of a potential problem than the other clones. Toby and Megan could be turned _off_ at any moment, but Laura could actively be turned _against_ them. Once her code word had been spoke, she no longer knew the difference between friend and foe.

“Can it wait until we're back with the others?” Steve asked. “I only want to tell this story once.”

They approached another little outcrop – this one had a pine bush on the top that was apparently bouncing back from the fire, and had put out a few needles. Just enough to conceal a human figure from somebody who wasn't looking for one.

“Wilson!” Toby called.

“I see you!” Sam rose out of the bushes and scrambled down the slop to join them. He and Toby were both wearing camouflage jackets made for much broader men, and Sam was carrying a rifle with a sniper sight, less complex than the one on the glock but just as home-made, fixed to the top. “Steve! I knew you'd make it!”

Steve really _did_ hug Sam, filth or no filth, and Sam did not object. Laura once again hung back during the greetings, standing by herself with her arms crossed over her abdomen. It was hard to tell whether she were in pain, or just felt awkward and out of place. Toby noticed and moved closer to her with a hand out.

“Hey, that's a lot of blood,” he began, but Laura shrank away from him, and he stopped. “Sorry.”

Just over the crest of the hill, looking down on a small, sulfurous-smelling lake, was a disused gravel road which appeared to have lain unmaintained since the eruption and fire – grass and other small plants were starting to sprout in it, and if nobody intervened the forest would reclaim it entirely when it grew back. Parked there was a rusty yellow pickup truck with a camper in the bed. Natasha was crouched on top of this with a rifle of her own, ready to pick off any soldiers that made it so far – Megan was sitting next to her, watching through a pair of binoculars very similar to the ones Steve had been forced to abandon. When Steve, Sam, and Toby emerged from the bushes, Natasha somersaulted down with a smile on her face – then stopped short as she saw Laura. Her lips moved as if to start saying the code word, then then she took in Laura's painted expression and bloodied clothes, and stopped.

“She's okay,” Steve assured her. He glanced back at Laura, but saw no sign that she recognized Natasha, any more than she had himself or Sam. She'd only seen them before when she was in a barely-conscious murderous rage. “I thought I told you guys to go to Buenos Aires,” Steve added to Natasha, with mock severity. He hadn't _wanted_ them to risk their lives for him, but he was glad they'd chosen to.

“Lucky for you, I stopped listening to you about the time you decided Tony Stark might be HYDRA,” Natasha replied. “Let's get out of here before anybody else shows up.”

“They can't come inside!” Megan protested as she climbed down, less gracefully than Natasha had, over the front of the truck. “They're a mess!” She gave her binoculars to Natasha while eyeing the dirt, ash, and blood on Steve's and Laura's clothing. Sam, having just embraced Steve, needed a bath as well.

“Not a priority,” said Natasha.

“But...” Megan looked towards the cab of the truck.

“He'll understand,” Natasha said.

Megan reluctantly made way as Steve, Sam, Toby, and Laura crowded into the camper. It was meant for one or two people at most, and did not hold five very well – especially when the inside was cluttered with notebooks, potted plants, and microscope slides. Along the left side was the kitchen area, with the sink, cupboards, and a couple of elements for cooking. On the right was a narrow sofa with a panel that could fold down to become a table. At the far end, above the cab of the truck, was a bed. Below this was a window for communication with the driver – through this, Steve saw Natasha open the passenger-side door and climb in.

“Francisco!” she said.

A plump man with bushy white hair and round eyeglasses sat up suddenly. He must have been asleep across the seats. There was a tiny black and white marmoset sitting on his shoulder. “Uh?” he asked.

“We're leaving!” Natasha pushed him out of the way so she could do up her seat belt.

“Yes, Miss!” The man put on a ridiculous trilby hat with several bent feathers in it, then turned the key in the ignition. The truck's engine made some very unhealthy noises as it ground to life.

They rumbled off down the gravel road. It was a bumpy ride – the road had never been very smooth even when anybody had been bothering to look after it, and the camper was not fixed to the truck as firmly as Steve would have liked. After his big breakfast and the exertion and terror of the escape, he quickly began feeling carsick. He swallowed hard and kept a lid on it – there was no way he was going to throw up in here. The camper's owner wouldn't appreciate the mess, and Natasha and Sam would never stop teasing him about it.

“This is Professor Díaz,” Natasha called back to the people in the camper. “And Pablo.” Pablo was evidently the monkey. “They owed me a favour.” She glared through the ltitle window, her eyes _daring_ Steve to ask how much she trusted the man. He made a mental note that she was still annoyed about his paranoia – he would have to apologize when they found a minute.

“ _Viuda Negra_!” Professor Díaz said proudly. “Black Widow! She saved my life!”

“It wasn't intentional,” Natasha said. “I just happened to be hired to assassinate the assassin who apparently couldn't tell which Francisco Díaz was a prominent activist and which was a little-known botanist.”

“Google,” Professor Díaz said. “Not a good way to find your target. Three Sarah Connors in the phone book! Better kill them all just to be sure!”

Steve _did_ understand that reference – the movie had been on the list Natasha and Barton had given him of things he _had_ to watch in order to understand the twenty-first century. He'd found it rather depressing. Despite its own claims to the contrary, the film's world did seem very much to be one in which the future was set in stone and nothing could change it.

“I knew he was working in Cordoba,” Natasha added, “so after HYDRA's soldiers destroyed our truck, I called and asked if he could give us a ride.”

“Happy to help!” said Professor Díaz repeated. “Keep this up, maybe I can _deserve_ to be assassinated next time!” He seemed delighted by the prospect. “If nobody wants you dead, you're doing something wrong!”

Natasha shook her head. It wasn't possible to see her face anymore, but Steve could imagine the fond smile on it. She had a talent for picking up strange but helpful friends.

Steve edged past Sam and turned on the water in the sink so he could start washing up. Megan had climbed up to lie on the bed and look down at everyone, while Toby sat on the bench with the table folded down so he could take his sighting device apart again. Sam stood, holding on to the counter to stay upright, and Laura had sat down on the floor below the little window, curled up so as to take up the smallest possible amount of space.

“How did you know where they'd taken me?” Steve called to Natasha, soaping up his hands.

“The binoculars,” Natasha said.

Steve remembered that they'd had a second set. “I lost them,” he said. “The HYDRA people took them away when they took my shirt.” He paused for a moment. “There's a tracking device in them,” he realized.

Toby nodded. “Strike Team Delta is two people,” he said, “so I built two sets of binoculars. Romanov gave you Barton's, and kept hers. They each have a GPS and an indicator mode that allows the users to find one another if separated.”

“So she's been using them to keep tabs on me this whole time?” asked Steve. She'd given him those when they parted ways at Fury's grave in Washington. All those months when he and Sam had been searching for Bucky and whatever remnants of HYDRA they could find, Natasha had known exactly where he was? “Is that why you gave them to me?” he asked her.

“No,” she replied from the cab. “I _gave_ them to you because I thought you'd have a _use_ for them. I'm actually a little surprised you never figured out how to use them to find _me_.”

Steve glanced at Toby and saw him nod. It worked both ways, didn't it? The gift had been an expression of trust, not an attempt to spy. He definitely needed to apologize.

So they'd found him using the signal from the binoculars, and had gotten here in Professor Díaz' truck. That was two questions answered, out of the major ones he could think of. “What about the guys they left behind to look for you?” he asked. “I gave myself and Roger up because I thought they'd take us and just leave you.” He'd been wrong. “How did you escape?”

“After you left, we stayed down,” said Sam. “I had some idea about ambushing them one by one – that would have been a long-ass night, but we didn't have anywhere to go. Lucky for us, the caimans spared us the trouble.”

It had turned out that the further anyone went into the swamp, the more likely they were to attract the attention of large carnivorous reptiles. Sam, Natasha, and the two clones were moving stealthily and had managed to avoid waking the animals. The soldiers, tramping through in their big combat boots, were about as subtle as a herd of cattle, and in that part of the pampas herds of cattle were prime pickings for caiman.

“We took a few ourselves,” Sam said. “Megan knocked one down when he got too closer to her, and I shot a couple, and the rest couldn't tell if it were us or the caimans. Didn't take them long to decide they'd better get out of there, but they stopped to shoot our truck full of holes before they left so we'd be stranded out there. Once most of them had taken off in their chopper, we dragged the one Megan had knocked out back to the road to question him, but when we got his helmet off...”

“I know,” Steve interrupted. “I've seen more of them since I got here.” Far too many more for his comfort. “What did you do with him?” he asked.

“We shot him,” said Natasha calmly.

“ _You_ shot him,” Megan corrected her.

“It seemed about the only thing to do,” Natasha admitted. “He was too brainwashed to tell us anything useful, we couldn't take him with us, and we couldn't just leave a super-soldier wandering around. The caiman got another dinner.”

“He was only a _clone_ , after all,” said Megan pointedly.

Steve saw Natasha shake her head – she wasn't interested in discussing it right now, but the point of contention that had been raised by her use of the code word on Roger was clearly still an issue. “So then what happened?” Steve asked, steering the conversation back on topic. “You escaped the soldiers and the caimans, and you called Natasha's friend to get a ride.”

Sam nodded. “When we got here... what was that? He asked.

“An hour and a half ago?” Toby suggested with a shrug. “Maybe? I didn't check.”

Sam evidently hadn't, either. “We found the place in an uproar,” he said, “so we figured you were on your way out. We couldn't go in and get you because we didn't know the layout, so we set up where we had a view of the compound to support you when we spotted you. Sure enough, there you were, and here we are.”

“What happened to Roger?” asked Megan.

Steve glanced at Toby, and found him, too, waiting for an answer to this question. The other clones didn't _like_ Roger, but they didn't want him to come to any harm. He was like an embarrassing cousin to him, a person who didn't get invited to their parties but who was still _family_ with all the love and loyalty that entailed, and that was going to make this so much more difficult. Steve took a deep breath. “Roger... Sutter decided to give him the super-soldier serum,” he explained, “so he could perform an experiment on him, and Roger...”

“Oh, Christ,” Toby interrupted, rolling his eyes. “To _Roger_? _Really_?”

“Let me guess.” Megan rubbed her forehead. “He wouldn't leave, would he?”

Toby snorted. “He's probably still in there, flexing in front of a mirror and trying to hit on nurses who don't speak English.”

“Roger is dead,” Steve said.

There was a moment of silence as Toby and Megan digested this news. It took them a moment, and then all the disgust and anger melted out of their faces to be replaced by surprise, confusion, and then loss – just as Steve had known it would. He'd had to bear bad tidings back to the families of several of his men during the war, and the reaction was always the same. There was always that quiet moment of disbelief, while the bereaved waited to hear that it was only a mistake or a cruel joke. That had always been the most painful part for Steve, having to look into somebody's eyes as the last flicker of hope in them went out.

“He didn't...” Megan began. “I mean, did the serum not...?”

“No, it worked,” Steve said. “The two of us escaped together. On the way, we ran into Dr. Kinney, and she said she would help us get out if we would take Laura with us.”

So far, Laura herself had sat on the floor and said nothing. She'd been very quiet during their escape attempt, replying when given an order or asked a question, but never initiating communication herself. Steve suspected she'd been punished for speaking out of turn in the past. Now she said, “I killed him. I killed him and I killed Sarah.”

“It wasn't her fault,” Steve said quickly. “She's got a code word, like the one that puts you guys to sleep,” he nodded at Toby and Megan. “She couldn't help herself.” He wanted _them_ to know that – and he wanted _Laura_ to know it.

She just curled up, face buried in her knees.

Another moment passed in which nobody knew what to say and therefore nothing was said. Then, however, Megan slipped down from the bed above the truck cab, and went to help Laura get up and sit on the seat next to Toby. If she were still worried about getting the upholstery dirty, she didn't say anything about it. “Can you write down the code word?” she asked Steve.

Steve grabbed a notebook that was lying open on the counter, and scribbled the word _Herkules_ in the corner of a page. He handed it to Megan, who tried to show it to Laura, but Laura quickly turned her head and shut her eyes, not wanting to see.

“Reading it won't affect you,” Megan promised her. “You have to _hear_ it. Toby and I have a theory that if we _know_ the trigger words they might not affect us anymore, although we haven't really gotten to test it yet.”

“We've been practicing,” he agreed. “We can fight it if we _know_ we're gonna hear it. It might be something else if somebody surprises us with it.”

Laura swallowed hard and took a quick peek, then turned away again with her eyes shut and her fists clenched. After a moment of sitting there tense as a bowstring, she relaxed again as she realized Megan was right. Just reading it didn't do anything.

“See?” Megan asked with a gentle smile. “I'm MVC-Θ39, but my name is Megan Harper.” Steve was startled to hear her use the numerical designation, but then he realized it was an attempt to reach out. She was saying _I am like you_.

“I'm AES-Γ12,” Toby added. “Toby Strong. And you're Χ23?”

“Laura, right?” asked Megan.

“Yes,” was the reply. “Laura.”

“I know a woman named Laura,” Natasha said from the cab. “She's one of the nicest people I've ever met.” This, too, was an attempt to comfort – _you have something in common with somebody who is not a monster._

Steve continued washing up while Toby and Megan tried to make Laura feel like she was among friends. “Is there anything I can wear besides this?” he asked.

“The professor might have something you could borrow, although it won't fit very well.” Sam took off the camouflage jacket he was wearing. “This is his. You can tell because the monkey's peed down the back of it.” He hung it on a hook, which it almost immediately fell off of as the truck bumped along. “What's in the bag?”

“This?” Steve had almost forgotten he was carrying the computer case. Now he took it off his shoulder and opened it to show the contents. “There's a picture that proves HYDRA has Loki's scepter, and Fenstermacher's laptop and address book. I figured they'd have useful information in them.” Their job wasn't over yet, after all. Now that they knew where Fenstermacher was and what he was doing, they had to do something about it.

Sam chuckled. “Oh, this? I just stole the big bad's personal computer, no biggie! When we stop we can set up the professor's satellite internet contraption and take a look.”

“Where are we going?” Steve asked.

“I don't know,” Sam admitted. He rapped on the window. “Professor! Where are we headed?”

“Up the volcano!” Professor Díaz replied.

“Why?” asked Steve. That didn't sound like a very safe place to go.

“Because they'll never look for us there!” the professor replied cheerfully. “Only an idiot would hide at the top of a volcano!”


	19. Precious Downtime

The truck and camper rattled up the mountain to the tree line, and stopped where a lonely row of four or five shrubby long-needled pines, just barely clinging to life at this altitude, provided cover. From there they could see the entire valley spread out below them, with the extent of the forest fire clearly delineated where the gray ash became green foliage. The compound wasn't visible in any detail from this distance, but the narrow plume of smoke from the helicopter was there, twisting into the sky.

Not far from their parking spot, a warm, sulfurous stream bubbled down the mountainside among blackened rocks and dead wood. There Steve, Sam, and Laura were finally able to wash up properly. Professor Díaz was happy to lend them all some clean clothing, though there were some suspicious stains on the left shoulders of all the shirts, where Pablo the monkey seemed to habitually sit. The Professor was of average height but significantly overweight, so his clothes were baggy on Steve sideways but much too short. Laura absolutely  _ swam _ in her borrowed shit and sweatpants, and needed a string belt and a few strategically tied knots in the fabric to hold them up.

After the comforting – albeit pungent – warm water, Steve found the adrenaline finally draining out of his system, leaving him feeling heavy-limbed and sleepy If he felt he could have allowed it, he would have crawled into the bed in the camper and passed out for at least another twenty-four hours. Seventy years actually wouldn't have seemed like too much of a stretch.

He couldn't do that quite yet, though. There were still thing he had to deal with. When this was all over, Steve thought, he was going to take a vacation. A  _ proper _ vacation, with sparkling white sand and gently rolling surf. Maybe Stark could recommend something – hell, Stark probably had a private island he'd be happy to loan out. Maybe he also knew somebody who could teach Steve to surf. Steve hadn't had a real holiday in...

Steve had never  _ had _ a holiday. He hadn't had the money as a young man, and then there'd been the war. After his long nap he'd gone straight from that into SHIELD, and then straight from SHIELD into searching for Bucky and rooting out what was left of HYDRA. He'd had a  _ break _ here and there, always too brief, but never a  _ holiday _ . Maybe it was time he gave it a try.

Laura had sat down on a slab of broken basalt at the side of the road and was staring blankly into the sky. Her face was completely  _ empty _ , in a completely different way than it had been when she was under the influence of the code word. Steve remembered how he'd felt after watching Bucky fall from the train – it had been as if a part of him had been torn away, as if a giant hole had been punched in his middle, as if he no longer had any  _ purpose _ and it was all  _ his own fault _ . He'd tried to drink the pain away, and when that hadn't worked he'd decided that every single member of HYDRA was going down and had tried to derive what purpose he could from that. When Sam had felt at fault for the death of his co-pilot, he'd left the military entirely to seek a new purpose in helping others deal with trauma. Laura was still in the initial shock stage, where nothing felt real yet. Steve wondered how she'd react later. What would  _ her _ new source of purpose be? Would she even be able to find one?

Megan, meanwhile, had made some tea. Professor Díaz kept several herbal blends on hand, in an assortment of re-used glass jars labeled with masking tape.He claimed they were cures for everything from snakebite to the common cold – the one Megan brewed was for insomnia, and she came out with two cups of it. The first, she offered to Steve.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, accepting it. He wasn't sure he actually wanted to  _ drink _ it – by now he was starting to feel a little sick. Steve could take a lot of punishment, but he'd eaten too much and then over-exerted himself while still recovering from major blood loss. It was a wonder he hadn't yet collapsed. The tea did smell nice, though, and the warm weight of the cup was reassuring in his hands.

Megan nodded and went to take the second cup to Laura. Natasha caught her arm on the way.

“You know she's the woman who nearly killed all three of us at Cheyenne, right?” she asked. Her voice was barely above a whisper, but Steve's enhanced hearing picked it up – and Laura glanced up, too, before hanging her head.

“You told us,” Megan said, not bothering to whisper. “You also said it wasn't her fault.” She looked at Steve for confirmation.

“It wasn't,” he said firmly, meeting Natasha's eyes rather than Megan's. If they were gonna do this trust thing, it had to go both ways – that was what Sam had said.

Natasha nodded and let go of Megan, and Megan went to sit next to Laura and push the cup of tea into her shaking hands. Laura accepted it passively, but stared into the liquid as if she wasn't sure what to do with it. Megan rubbed her back and spoke to her softly, telling her the tea was chamomile and licorice and would calm her nerves, and after a moment Laura nodded and took a sip. Toby came to join them a few minutes later, sitting down on the other side of Laura. Both seemed completely unafraid of her – in fact, they were making a distinct effort to welcome her in to their messy but devoted little family. Perhaps they thought of her as a long-lost sister.

“I'm sorry,” Steve said to Natasha.

“Dr. Kinney did tell you to take her.” Natasha shrugged – honouring somebody's dying wish was apparently a thing she understood.

“No, not that,” said Steve. “I'm sorry. I've made a lot of shitty decisions this week.”

“No more than usual,” said Natasha, deadpan.

Steve's eyebrows rose. “Are you saying I normally make shitty decisions?”

“Ninety-nine and forty-four one hundredths percent of people would agree that jumping out of a plane without a parachute on is an  _ incredibly _ shitty decision,” Natasha said, and flashed him a wry smile for a moment before turning serious again. “We're not easy people to trust, any of us, and we're not people who trust others easily, but Sam's right – we  _ have _ to trust each  _ other _ , or we've got  _ nobody _ .”

“Yeah,” Steve sighed. During the war he'd been surrounded by people he  _ knew _ he could trust: Bucky, Peggy, Howard, Phillips, the 107 th . Then at SHIELD he'd thought the same thing, he'd thought he could trust Fury and Pierce and Rumlow and Natasha herself, only to have it turn out to all be an intricate illusion. Trust everybody, or trust nobody. Somewhere between those who extremes he was going to have to find some kind of equilibrium.

That reminded Steve of their other issue. “What about Megan?” he asked.

“What about her?” Natasha snorted.

Steve decided she knew exactly what he was talking about, she just didn't want to discuss it. He wasn't going to let her get away with that. “Could be just me, but I think she's still mad at you,” he said.

“Good thing I don't care what she thinks of me, then,” Natasha replied.

Steve frowned. “Natasha, we need  _ her _ to trust us, too. She's in this with us.” He still wasn't entirely sure he  _ liked _ that, either, but he was done fighting it. Toby and Megan clearly weren't going to leave even if he told them to, and they did have some useful skills, so he wouldn't insist.

“She's over-reacting to nothing,” said Natasha. “She and Toby were 'practicing' resisting that code word all the way up here. I told her I wouldn't use it on her if she didn't give me a reason to.”

Natasha had meant that she wouldn't use the code word on Megan because she respected her as an ally – Megan would have interpreted it as Natasha being entirely prepared to use it the moment one of the clones stepped out of line. Steve sighed.

While Steve and Natasha talked, Sam and Professor Díaz had set up a folding table behind the truck and started a small gas-powered generator. Now they were trying to get the Professor's satellite wifi to work on Fenstermacher's laptop. Hopefully they could read his email, or extract some useful information from his hard drive. The Professor worked on that, while Sam flipped through the address book with a frown on his face.

Steve was about to ask them if they'd made any progress when he heard a sound of breaking china. Laura had dropped her teacup, and it was now lying in pieces among the rocks at her feet. She stared at it in horror for a few seconds, then looked at Megan, cringing away as if expecting to be scolded or struck. Megan only gave her a hug, and Laura dissolved into tears on her shoulder.

“What's her code word?” Natasha asked under her breath.

“ _ Herkules _ ,” Steve replied, matching Sutter's German pronunciation as best he could. “I didn't know enough about the myth to figure out how to counteract it. Didn't Hercules  _ kill _ a hydra, or am I remembering that wrong?”

“No, he did,” Natasha said thoughtfully. “It was one of his Twelve Labors. He was assigned to do ten heroic deeds for King Eurystheus as a punishment for murdering his family after the goddess Hera cursed him with a fit of blind rage.”

Suddenly the word made  _ perfect _ sense – not only as the suggestion that triggered a murderous rage, but as what  _ HYDRA _ in particular would choose for that purpose. Of course these people who went around creating and destroying human beings like it was nothing would cast themselves in the role of  _ gods _ . “So the word to bring her out of it might be  _ Zwölfarbeiten, _ ” he suggested.  _ Twelve labors _ .

“Hopefully we won't have to find out,” Natasha said.

Sam rapped on the table to get everybody's attention. “Okay, everybody!” he announced. “Who wants to try guessing Fenstermacher's password? Winner gets the jellybean jar!”

“I'll do it,” Natasha said. “Let me look.”

Steve came to watch as she brought up the login screen. “We couldn't get lucky enough that he's one of those people who can't remember them and has to write them down somewhere, huh?” he asked, glancing at the address book.

“Of course not,” Sam replied. “Like you said the other day – there's no challenge in that!”

Natasha's fingers flew across the keyboard, and the laptop rebooted into a black screen with a blinking white prompt, waiting for commands. From there she brought up the desktop in a smaller window, while continuing to work what Steve would have cautiously guessed was some form of DOS – although he would have preferred to avoid guessing if possible. Steve had learned how to _use_ computers, but if he had to make assumptions about how they _worked_ he generally ended up making a fool of himself.

“His email password has already been changed from the one stored in the keystroke log,” Natasha observed. “Somebody realized the computer was taken, and they've taken steps to stop us from doing anything with it. I can probably break into the email anyway, but they'll know I've been there. For now, let's just see what's been cached on the hard drive.” She opened the inbox in the secondary window. “Looks like he's been in communication with several members of the Argentine congress – I bet their names are in that address book – including Vice-President Diego Quiroga.”

“He's in there, yeah,” Sam agreed.

“He mentioned a Quiroga to Sutter, the morning they brought me in,” Steve said. “Apparently he was impatient about something. Fenstermacher called Sutter away later to help him deal with the man.” He frowned, thinking – as in the USA, if something were to happen to the president of Argentina, the vice-president would become _de facto_ leader of the country until an election could be held. It would be a quick way to advance the career of a politician who was in HYDRA's pocket. AIM had tried something similar last Christmas, though Iron Man had managed to stop them in time.

“Representatives of both Brazil and the United States have been in touch with the government of Argentina within the past few days,” Natasha said, eyes flicking back and forth as she read the emails. “Looks like Cordero got quite a bit of information out of Luke Finster, and the Brazilian Navy has the information we gave to Captain da Silva. They're putting pressure on Argentina to look into this, and Fenstermacher is making suggestions for how Quiroga might stall them.”

“Stall them from investigating HYDRA?” Sam asked.

“If there are operatives or sympathizers in the government, they've probably been doing it for years,” said Steve.

Natasha nodded. “Argentina has been politically and economically unstable since World War Two, and in the past forty years or so there have also been major conservation issues. Those are all great excuses to argue that a country should solve its own problems before it goes looking for Nazis.” She scrolled down through the email. “Fenstermacher references previous occasions when they've distracted people from HYDRA activity in the country by giving up a well-known former member. That's probably what happened with figures like Mengele and Eichmann – they outlives their usefulness to HYDRA, so they were turned over for trial. Then that kept everybody distracted for a while so the rest of the organization could get on with things. He's offered to give them Kinney in order to get the pressure off and make Quiroga look like a hero.”

No wonder Dr. Kinney had been so eager to leave the compound with Laura, Steve thought. Laura's safety was important to her, but so was her own skin. “That's not going to work, though, because Kinney is dead,” Steve said. “Maybe he'll give them Sutter instead.” Fenstermacher had certainly sounded angry enough to do it, using his megaphone as the helicopter crashed to call Sutter a _stupid son-of-a-bitch_ in German. For a moment, Steve optimistically wondered if Fenstermacher had been killed in the crash, but then he thought of the changed email passwords. Would anybody else think to do that if he died, or be _able_ to?

“I don't think so,” Natasha said. “The way he talks about Kinney makes it sound like she was only around anymore because of Χ23. If she were working with the cloned mutants, she's probably no longer useful to the project, but Sutter is.” She closed the email progrma and began going through other files. There were equipment and vehicle inventories. Maps. Lists of names. Progress reports.

“Buenos Aires,” Natasha said.

“We keep talking about Buenos Aires,” Sam observed, “but we never seem to get there.”

“Then I think it's time we tried,” Natasha said. “That's where _they're_ going.”

She brought up a map of the city, overlaid with a series of red lines that suggested routes to the congressional palace, and boxes that perhaps delineated areas big enough to land the troop-carriers. “They're going to attack the capital and stage a coup, under the pretense that they're establishing a new dictatorship like Peron's. The president will be killed so that Quiroga can form an interim government that will ask for foreign help. Brazil has already expressed interest, so they'll probably be first to get involved, and then HYDRA will just work their way up the continent. They're going to start World War Three in South America,” she said, “and let their New World Order emerge from the ruins.”

Like the grass growing through the burned roots of the trees, Steve thought. “Then I guess we're going to Buenos Aires,” he said. “We have to give this book and computer to the president, in person – and not to anybody else. It's the only way to be sure we can bypass the delaying tactics and keep it out of HYDRA's hands.”

“You mean we're actually going to get something doe _without_ blowing everything up at the end?” Sam asked.

“Well, we _are_ supposed to be the Good Guys,” Natasha said. She shut the computer off and folded it up. “We probably should try to do things through the proper channels before we just kick everybody's ass. We can drive there in two or three days as long as the Professor's truck doesn't fall to pieces on the way.”

Steve sighed. So here they were, after all that, about to rush off into the fray again. The thought made him want to fall face-first on the ground and refuse to get up again.

Sam seemed to feel the same way. “I don't think we have to leave right _now_ ,” he said. “They can't possibly be ready in that amount of time, especially when they've got to fix all the damage Steve and X23 caused getting out.”

“And Fenstermacher himself was in the helicopter when it went down,” Steve put in. “He's gonna need some recovery time before he's in any shape to organize something like that.” He glanced at the three clones. “Laura needs time to recover, if anybody does.”

Natasha made it unanimous: “we're _all_ exhausted. We can take turns on watch tonight, and head out tomorrow morning. More sleepless nights won't do anything for Steve's decision-making skills.” She sounded as if she weren't entirely sure this was the best plan, but she understood that if they kept this pace up they would all collapse. That was good enough for Steve.

Steve stifled a yawn. “Hey, Toby!” he called out.

Toby and Megan were still sitting with Laura. “Yeah?” Toby asked, raising his head.

“You're the cameras guy,” said Steve. “Can you get us some good photographs of the compound from this distance? Something we can show to skeptics to prove that it exists?”

“I'll see what I can put together,” he said. “In the morning they'll be out of the mountain's shadow, but I'll have to find a different vantage point or I'll be shooting into the sun,” he warned.

That was doable. They had the start of a plan. Probably not even an eighth at this point, but that, too, was good enough for now. “Great,” said Steve. “Is there anything to eat?”

Professor Díaz actually did a little excited hop. “This is a wonderful day!” he declared. “I get to cook for Captain America!”

The Professor clearly enjoyed cooking immensely, and served up what was probably the closest thing to gourmet fare he could manage when all he had was a coleman stove halfway up the side of a moutain – eggplant with provolone and red chimichurri. Steve would have preferred something with meat, but this was surprisingly filling, and afterward the Professor proudly produced a bag of marshmallows for them to toast over a campfire. These were slightly stale, but it seemed as if he'd been saving them for a special occasion. Steve was a little flattered to think that he counted as such.

The fire gave him some cause for worry. Wouldn't the smoke be visible, silhouetted against the sunset? Or when it got dark, the fire itself might show up as a point of light on the hillside? There was only the one row of shrubbery to hide it.

When Steve looked up, however, he saw _two_ narrow plumes rising into the sky from the mountain peak to the west. The volcano was still active – that was why the base could mine energy from the earth. Anyone who saw their tiny fire would probably think it was magma bubbling up, and probably wouldn't be any too willing to investigate. As the Professor had said, only an idiot would hide at the top of an active volcano.

“Are we sure it's safe up here?” Steve asked.

“Probably not,” said Natasha. Her marshmallow caught fire, and she blew it out before pulling it off the stick to put it in her mouth. “I doubt anything will happen between now and tomorrow morning, though.”

“How was the food, Captain America?” Professor Díaz asked. He offered an untoasted marshmallow to Pablo. The monkey snatched it from his fingers and stuffed the whole thing in its mouth. “It's traditional Argentinian cuisine. Except for the marshmallows, of course.”

“It was great, thanks,” said Steve.

The Professor beamed and held out the pot and serving spoon. “There's more,” he offered.

“Thanks.” Steve helped himself.

“Science pig,” said Megan.

Steve looked up sharply at her, but found her smiling at him – she was teasing, not insulting. There was something in her face at that moment that was so much like Peggy that Steve felt a little ill. It was still in the back of his mind that Megan was a clone, but somehow he'd almost forgotten that she was _Peggy's_ clone. He swallowed hard and quickly turned away. Doing so would probably hurt her feelings, but couldn't help himself.

After they'd all eaten their fill, Steve sat down on the boulder where Laura had been sitting earlier and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. The events of the day – and of the days before – were definitely catching up with him now. He was stiff and achy, and felt as if he could spend the night right there, on that cold rock in the chilly night air. He barely even realized he was falling asleep until he suddenly woke to the rattle of a can of spray paint being shaken.

Steve heaved himself rather painfully off the slab of stone and went to investigate. Below the bushes they'd parked behind was a low, flat cliff of sorts, and Toby was painting letters on it with a can of yellow car paint, while Megan and Laura watched.

_Roger Stevens – 1991-2015._

Steve wondered whether anybody would see the makeshift memorial up here, or whether it would even last more than a few weeks when it was exposed to the elements and possibly to the volcano besides. He supposed it didn't matter. The thing about a monument was that it _existed_ , that it carried on for a while when what it commemorated was gone. Once he' finished the writing, Toby stepped back and put an arm around Megan as they both bowed their heads for a moment.

They hadn't liked Roger, but he'd been _one of them_. That was why Megan had been so upset by Natasha using the sleep word on him. He wasn't an enemy to be incapacitated. He was her obnoxious little brother whom she loved in spite of everything, including himself.

Steve climbed down to join them. Roger had, in a way, been _his_ brother as well, and family wasn't something Steve had so much of that he could neglect it when it offered itself.

“He thought I'd given him a signal,” Steve explained as he stood on the other side of Laura. “He thought I was giving him a second chance. And if I'm honest I don't think I could have gotten out of there alone.” Steve had tried so hard to see something of himself in Roger, and he would have liked to think he'd found it in the end, but Roger wasn't Steve any more than Megan was Peggy or Toby was Stark. As Natasha had said, they were their own people – first, last, and always.

Toby shook the can again. “Laura,” he said, “do you know when Dr. Kinney was born? I'm pretty sure her birthday was October the eighth...”

Laura was keeping her head down, fiddling with a piece of paper that appeared to have bloodstains on it. “She just turned fifty-five last year,” she said softly. “We had cake, with the coloured bits in it.”

Toby added a second line of letters: _Dr. Sarah Kinney – 1959-2015._

There didn't seem to be much more to be done after that, so they headed back up to the camper. While the others scrambled up a gravelly slope, Laura climbed the cliff itself as if it were nothing, and was waiting for them at the top with the piece of paper still in her hand.

“What's that?” Megan asked, pointing to it.

Laura's first instinct was clearly to snatch it away, to protect it, but after a moment of visible indecision she overcame that and offered it tentatively to Megan. It turned out to be half an envelope, with a return address written in the corner. The blood had made the ink run, and not all the letters were clear, but it was somewhere in upstate New York.

“What is it?” Megan asked.

“Sarah reached into her jacket for it,” Laura said. She was quiet for a moment, then forced herself to add, “when I killed her.”

Natasha came to look. “I know where that is,” she said. “That's Xavier's school. Give it here.” She took the paper from Megan and used a pen to trace the blurred letters. “After we deliver Fenstermacher's computer to Buenos Aires, we'll take you there,” she said to Laura.

“What is it?” Laura wanted to know. She seemed to be getting used to the idea that she was allowed to ask questions. “Sutter told me that if I ever left, I'd have nowhere to go – except where mutants go.” The bitter voice she said that in made it very clear where Martin Sutter thought mutants went.

But Natasha nodded as she handed the paper back to Laura. “This is the place,” she said. “This is where mutants go. Charles Xavier runs a school for teaching them to use their powers. If you are who I think you are, your... your father is there. Dr. Kinney would have wanted you to go there.”

“But I...” Laura fingered the blood on the paper. “I've already been there, I think. I don't know. Some people came to see me after the Air Force took Sutter and Sarah away. They asked me a lot of questions, and then talked about sending me to Xavier, but I... I just stopped,” she said. She was struggling to find words to describe the experience, and Steve saw Megan reach out for her. _Just stopped_ was probably a pretty good description of what happened to them under the influence of their code word, too. “And when I woke up they were all dead. Like Sarah.” She shut her eyes.

“Do you _want_ help?” asked Natasha.

“Yes,” said Laura, “but I...”

“Then Xavier will help you,” Natasha repeated. “He doesn't judge people, okay? He believes there's good in everybody.” She glanced at Steve, and he suddenly wondered – was that what she thought of _him_? That he saw the good in everybody? The idea that Natasha of all people harboured that kind of illusion about him made him want to squirm. Of all the people he'd ever worried he would disappoint by not quite being what Captain America was supposed to be, Natasha Romanov had never been high on that list.

“I wish _we_ had somewhere to go,” said Megan wistfully. “I can't exactly just go back to Dallas and beg the restaurant to take me back. Not after vanishing like that – I've probably been fired for job abandonment.” When she'd talked about having to flee SHIELD, she'd specifically blamed Steve for it and had clearly resented it. There was none of that in her voice now. She didn't seem to be blaming anybody for her predicament – it was unavoidable.

“Yeah,” Toby agreed. “Me, too.”

“I'm sure there's something we can do to help you,” Steve offered. “Hill's apparently been helping ex-SHIELD people get jobs...”

“Hill works for Stark now,” said Toby. “Count me out.”

“I don't think tropical bird sanctuaries are quite her thing,” sighed Megan.

Steve nodded and said nothing more, but decided to keep the issue in the back of his mind. They would _need_ somewhere to go when this was over, and as Megan had once said, Steve himself had lost both of them two jobs now. If they were going to survive, they would need help – and so would the other clones, Lucinda and Rick and the other clones of Steve. Six were dead for sure now, but Megan had said there were fourteen. He would have to find the other eight, and help them if he could.

When Steve Rogers had been young... no, that was no way to begin that thought. Physically, he was _still_ young, and he wasn't sure quite when he'd stopped _feeling_ that way. Regardless – in the 40's he hadn't thought he'd live to see the age of ninety-six. Between his poor health, his penchant for finding trouble, and trouble's uncanny ability to find _him_ , he'd known full well that he would be lucky to reach forty. But if he'd been asked to picture himself alive in the year 2015, he would have thought of an old man sitting and painting in Central Park. Somebody peacefully returned, not bothering anybody, enjoying his senectitude. Funny old world, wasn't it?

“We should turn in,” said Natasha.

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. Despite knowing what they had to do next, everything just seemed kind of confused and depressing right now. Maybe a good night's sleep would help that, although he wasn't holding his breath.

They sorted out sleeping arrangements, and by universal unspoken agreement, the women got the soft surfaces: Megan and Laura shared the actual bed, while Natasha slept on the sofa bench by the table. If Natasha felt as if this arrangement were sexist, she didn't seem inclined to complain about it. The professor slept in the cab of the truck, snoring, while Pablo the monkey whistled through its teeth in its sleep. Toby slept on the table, and Sam and Steve got the floor. It was a hard surface, just far enough from level to make him feel like the blood was rushing to his head, and there was no room to roll over or stretch out. Toby mumbled to himself in his sleep, and Laura whimpered and twitched in the throes of terrible nightmares.

Despite all that, Steve slept like the dead.


	20. HYDRA on the Move

 Steve woke in the morning still fuzzy-headed, with his eyes itchy and the skin on his scalp and forehead feeling too tight, but he could smell coffee and toast and in the ensuing argument between stomach and brain the stomach won. He scrawled out of his sleeping bag and made an only partially successful attempt to stretch the stiffness out of his muscles, then headed outside. There was frost on the rocks and trees and Steve's breath turned to thin mist in the cold air, but the pale early sunlight and the birds chirping in the branches lent the morning an atmosphere of peaceful optimism.

“Its' about time you reappeared,” said Natasha. “We though it would be kinder to let you sleep, but we were starting to worry you were gonna take another seventy years off.

“Once was enough, thanks,” said Steve. He accepted a cup of coffee offered by Professor Díaz, and then took a head count. The Professor was cooking, frying eggs in a pan and cutting bread to toast in a device he appeared to have made out of two wire cooling racks and a pair of tongs. Megan was sitting on the rear bumper of the camper putting her hair in braids, while Toby squatted by the basalt slab at the side of the road, working with lenses and camera parts he had spread out on a handkerchief in front of him.

“Where's Sam?” asked Steve.

“He went for a run,” Megan said, and checked her watch. “About twenty minutes ago. He'll probably be back soon.”

Natasha herself was standing in the middle of the road with her heels together and her hands in front of her, palms-up and fingers touching – Steve recognized the posture from the demonstration of ballet positions she'd given to him and Sam in their motel room in Tampa. Laura was next to her, imitating the pose with an anxious student's expression of worried concentration.

“All right, second position,” said Natasha. She widened her stance and stretched her arms out to her sides. Laura did the same. “Good. Back straight, chin up, eyes front. Third position.” She put one heel in front of the other and raised her right arm above her head.

It was doubtful whether HYDRA would ever haven given Laura ballet lessons, but she seemed to be getting the hang of it – her movements were fluid and she was flexible enough to reproduce the positions correctly. In comparison to Natasha, though, her _attitude_ was all wrong. Natasha was oddly able to be both poised and utterly relaxed at the same time, as if she were hanging from a string and would collapse limply to the floor if it were cut. Laura, on the other hand, was rigid as a statue, every muscle coiled for flight or fight. If Natasha seemed like she would topple at the slightest touch, Laura looked ready to whirl around and cut somebody in half.

“They taught us ballet,” Natasha explained, moving on into fourth position, “because it requires complete _focus_. A ballerina knows exactly where every part of her body is and exactly how it is moving. You have to be entirely in the moment, no distractions, no daydreaming. A ballet is just a fight in which none of the blows are fatal. If you can dance, you can kill.”

Laura nodded and followed Natasha into fifth position, and Steve understood what she was getting at – it worked the other way, too. If Laura could _kill_ , she had the mindset necessary to _dance_. She could take her destructive training and turn it into something beautiful.

Steve had read Natasha's files, and had some idea of what she'd been doing between the fall of the Soviet Union and when Barton had recruited her for SHIELD: an assassin-for-hire, doing whatever was necessary to keep herself alive and out of prison. Somehow, Agent Barton had managed to convince her that she could be more than that. He'd found the human being inside the killing machine where nobody else had even bothered to look before – and Steve found himself wondering how he'd done it. What had Barton said to Natasha, or shown her, that had made her want to change? Natasha herself had never discussed it, and Steve thought it must have been something deeply personal both to have affected her like that and to have cemented the deep bond between the two of them. Maybe someday she would trust Steve enough to tell him.

The ballet lesson finished for the morning, Natasha snagged a cup of coffee for herself and went to sit down on the steps of the camper, next to Megan. Megan, having finished with her hair, rather pointedly got up and went to sit with Toby instead. Rather than react, Natasha just rolled her eyes quietly and sipped her drink.

Laura, meanwhile, dropped her arms to her sides and then stood in the middle of the gravel road, looking lost. She had no idea where to go or what to do when there was nobody giving her orders. Maybe she would have felt less awkward if Dr. Kinney had been with them, but that was unavoidably not so. Steve motioned for her to join him and Natasha at the back of the camper.

“How are you doing?” he asked her as she approached. “Do you need anything?”

Laura licked her lips. “In about four days I'll need supplies to deal with my menstrual cycle.”

That wasn't on the list of things Steve had expected to hear, but it was a reasonable enough request. “We'll be back among people by then,” he promised her. “We'll find you something.”

Natasha started to laugh, but then quickly suppressed it.

Steve looked at the other two clones. “How about you guys?” he asked. “You okay?”

“My hair is frizzing out,” said Megan, examining the end of her braid critically. “But if that's the worst thing I have to complain about I'm probably okay.” She narrowed her eyes at Natasha, but if she'd intended to say anything, she never got to – Toby spoke first.

“I don't know where the Professor got this camera,” he groused, “but it must've been the Argentinian equivalent of Wal-Mart. It's got one of those fake zooms that works by enlarging the pixels and assuming you won't notice instead of actually _doing_ anything optically. Give me a couple of hours and I'll get some _much_ better pictures out of it.”

“I don't need a zoom to take pictures of plants,” the Professor protested. “Flowers don't run away when they hear me coming.”

“In the world we're living in? I wouldn't take that for granted,” Natasha warned him.

Toby was unmoved. “This is just a waste of a perfectly good charge-coupled device,” he declared.

A few minutes later, Sam returned from his morning run. He was shirtless, and despite the cold air he was shiny with sweat, breathing in puffs of mist.

“How's the lungs?” Steve called out as he jogged up.

“Oh, and what have _you_ done this morning?” Sam demanded, leaning on the side of the camper to catch his breath. “Ten laps of the mountain and showered already? I thought I felt a breeze as something went by.” He panted a few more times, then stood up straight and grabbed his shirt, which he'd hung off one of the truck's side mirrors. “Has anybody had a look down into the valley? Because there's a hell of a lot of smoke. Either they've crashed another chopper or the place is on fire.”

He was trying to sound casual, but Steve picked up the worry in his voice – if something had changed in the valley, it probably didn't mean anything good for them. Even if the base were burning, it was most likely because HYDRA was upping stakes and moving, and they'd be even _more_ difficult to find next time.

“Where are the binoculars?” Steve asked.

“Er.” Toby looked at the parts laid out on his handkerchief, then picked up the empty housing and showed it to Steve. “I kind of took them apart. I can put them back together, but you'll have to wait.”

“I told you, you should have hung on to yours,” Natasha said.

Steve doubted waiting was an option. “Professor,” he said, “do you have a pair?” Even if they weren't as good as what Toby could build, they would be better than nothing.

“Only for birdwatching.” The Professor fished a pair out of his pocket and gave them to Steve. They were about the same size as Toby's digital ones but weighed far more, and the housing was covered in tiny pockmarks. “Pablo hasn't learned that they aren't food,” the Professor added apologetically, as Steve frowned at their condition.

Cheap binoculars that had been chewed by a monkey. Still better than nothing. “Where was your vantage point?” Steve asked Sam.

“There's a spot where the road is raised on the way up to the pass,” Sam said. “Very exposed – not somewhere I'd wanna linger if they're likely to be out looking for us, but probably a good spot for Toby to get his pictures from.”

“Still shooting into the sun,” said Toby with a scowl. He looked at his pile of parts and sighed – he, too, understood that the situation had just become more urgent. “Gimme ten minutes.”

He ended up taking thirty, putting together a home-made telephoto lens that seemed to comprise more zip ties and duct tape than it did lenses. The pictures it took were blurred in the corners, and Toby continued to fiddle with to while making frustrated noises until Megan finally told him to stop.

“It's good _enough_ ,” she said. “We're in a hurry!”

“It could be so much better!” Toby complained. “If only I had...”

“You don't,” Megan cut him off. “You don't need to be such a perfectionist.”

Her choice of words startled Steve, because he'd just been thinking about how very Stark-like Toby's behaviour was. Stark's first arc reactor had famously been built out of old missile parts in a cave. The conditions and materials Toby was working with in building his sights and lenses on this trip weren't much better than that, but even so, he wanted to keep tinkering, to keep improving it. It did make Steve think about how Stark had new armor and a better reactor every time Steve met him. Howard had been the same way, never considering anything he built to be _finished_. There was always room to improve.

'Perfectionist' wasn't a word Steve would have applied to either generation of the Stark family – it had connotations of organization and precision that just didn't feel right for men who always seemed to be thinking about six things at once, five of which were themselves. But if it could be applied to Toby for the very qualities that seemed most in common with Howard and Tony, then maybe that said something about them, too.

Sam showed Steve and Toby the route he'd taken along the mountainside. The road had been a gravel track at best even before the eruption, and the lack of maintenance since wasn't the only thing that made it rough going. As they headed north, they found places where the ground had shifted in the eruption, leaving gaps where the road seemed to stop and then start again, or where it looked as if the builders heading south hadn't quite agreed where to meet their counterparts going north. How Sam had managed to have a pleasant morning jog here without worrying that he'd get lost, Steve had no idea.

About fifteen minutes from their campsite was a spot where the ground had heaved upwards and split, producing a cracked and jumbled patch of terrain that looked very unstable. Sam didn't seem concerned as he hopped from rock to rock up to the highest point, so Steve followed him. After a few moments of nervous hesitation, Toby brought up the rear.

“Are you sure this is safe?” he asked, creeping up on all fours.

“You're a pilot,” Sam replied. “Are you really afraid of heights?”

“Heights are fine,” Toby replied. “Mountains falling out from under me is different.”

Steve was pretty sure this high spot couldn't have been a part of Sam's morning run – he must've seen it and climbed up on purpose with the idea that would be a good place to look down in the valley. It was, but it was also, as he'd warned them, very exposed. The wind whistled unpleasantly as it slipped through the cracks in the rocks below them, and even dressed in the Professor's camouflage-print jackets, from the air the three men would be easy to pick out as human figures against the pale stone beneath them.

As Toby had feared, the morning sun was right in their eyes. Steve had to hold up a hand to keep the glare out, but once he did it was easy to see what Sam had described to him: clouds of white steam rising from the edge of the area affected by the forest fire. Toby folded a piece of paper and taped it to the top of his telephoto lens in order to keep some of he glare out and got down on his hands and elbows. Using his body as a tripod, he began taking pictures.

Steve and Sam squatted, trying to keep themselves small and less-visible as they studied the view. “When I noticed it I thought it was steam, like maybe there was a hot spring down there somewhere,” said Sam. “Then I saw this black speck and I realized it was a chopper taking off, and I realized that's exactly where the base is.”

“There _is_ a hot spring,” Steve said. “Sutter told me the base runs on geothermal power – they pump hot water from the volcano up through turbines.” He paused. “So either something's broken, or they've put everything into overdrive because they need the power for something big.”

 _Power_. Turning Steve into Captain America had used so much electricity it had caused brownouts all over Brooklyn and into parts of Queens. Roger's transformation had made the whole building shake as machinery worked, and he'd just been one person – there'd been _fourteen_ of the tanning-bed-like contraptions in that room. Producing Vita-Rays, the energy the 21 st century called _gamma radiation_ , required vast amounts of power. Of course they had their power plant in overdrive. Of _course_ they did.

Steve stood up and brushed grit off his knees. “They know they've been compromised,” he said. “We've got the laptop and all the data in it – they're giving the serum to the rest of their clones and getting ready to move out.” Fenstermacher must have decided he couldn't wait any longer – the time had come to use his secret weapon or risk losing it, so he was going to _use_ it. “Let's get back to the camper,” he added, stomach sinking. “We have to go to Buenos Aires. _Now_.” Those troop helicopters could make the trip in six hours. How were they ever going to get there in time to warn anybody when all they had was an old truck?

“Just a sec,” said Toby, still taking pictures. “I'm almost done.”

“One picture is enough to prove the place exists,” Steve told him. He tried to imitate the no-nonsense tone Megan had used when she'd told him not to be a perfectionist.

He must have failed. “But not enough for people who are gonna need to know how many vehicles and people they have in order to draw up their battle plans,” Toby said.

Steve started to squat down again, but then Sam grabbed his shoulder. “Do you hear that?” he asked.

Toby raised his eyes from the viewfinder and looked around. Steve held his breath, listening. The wind was loud among the rocks up here, and even louder as a persistent roar in their ears, but now that his attention had been brought to it he could hear something else as well. The mechanical thrum of a helicopter rotor. The last time they'd heard _that_ sound approaching, it had been a disaster.

But they had something now they hadn't had on the Pampas – _cover_. “Get down!” Steve ordered. Sam immediately dived off the raised ground and slipped into one of the wider cracks. Toby seemed to think he could still get a few more shots in, so Steve unceremoniously grabbed him and they rolled down the slope under a patch of charred-thorny shrubs.

“My lenses!” Toby protested. When Steve looked, he saw that they'd lost half the home-made telephoto in their fall.

“Don't worry about it,” Steve said, and pushed Toby's head down as the helicopter passed overhead. It was painted black, with no numbers or markings on it. For a moment Steve was absolutely sure it had seen them and was about to land, but then it moved on to the south and was gone.

“It's heading for the camper,” Sam called out, emerging from his own hiding place.

There was no way they would get there ahead of it – but Natasha would have the sense to make the others leave when she heard the helicopter coming, and maybe Steve, Sam, and Toby could catch up with the rest of their party on the way down the mountain. “Then let's get moving,” said Steve.

Their furtive trip back to the campsite was very different from the leisurely hike they'd taken to get to the lookout point. They stayed close to the trees and rocks whenever possible, moving from cover to cover like fugitives – or soldiers. It reminded Steve much too strongly of moving through bomb-gutted buildings in Europe, knowing that there might be an ambush around every corner. God, he could almost smell Dungan's cigars.

His shield was still in the camper. Why hadn't he brought it along? He didn't want to face the clone soldiers again without it. It was the only advantage he had over them.

Twice more on the trip back they had to hurriedly find cover and hide from the helicopter, which seemed to be circling the mountain like a huge, insectile vulture. It was too far away for Steve to see how many were on board or even if any of them were clone soldiers – but the way it just kept coming back made him wonder if it were following them. What if there were something on board, a heat sensor or whatever other technology HYDRA had developed for tracking people, that allowed the passengers to keep locating the three men? What if _they_ were leading the helicopter back to the campsite?

They were almost there when the sound of a gunshot told him HYDRA was already there.

Cover forgotten, he broke into a run, a dozen worst-case scenarios running laps in his head. What if one of the soldiers knew Laura's code word and turned her on them? What if they managed to take the laptop back? What if somebody got killed... one of the clones, or even the Professor? Steve didn't need any more people to die when he could have prevented it! He couldn't _take_ that!

He dashed around the corner to where the camper was – and stopped short as he discovered that the fight was already over.

There were three clone soldiers, perhaps some kind of scouting party. Megan had one of them pinned to the ground with her elbow against his neck, as she'd pinned Steve in the parking lot of the Cosmic Cafe. Lying near his head was a hand-held radio with a smoking bullet hole in the middle of it.

Natasha had the second soldier – he'd been shot through the head, and she was dragging his body back from wherever it was she'd spotted him hiding. The Professor and Pablo had scrambled up on top of the camper to be safe, and Laura was in the process of pushing the third clone's limp body off the hood of the truck, leaving behind a broad smear of blood.

“Perfect timing, Steve,” said Natasha, removing the spent clip from her glock. “Just magnificent.”

Steve laughed softly, not because it was funny but out of relief. “Missed the party, huh?”

“Remind me never to go to a party thrown by you _or_ Stark,” Natasha said. She rolled the dead soldier over and began frisking him. “This third one probably called HQ while the other two tried to capture us. I kept him from delivering a full report, but more will be on the way already.”

Megan began to get up, but suddenly the soldier she'd pinned grabbed her ankle and tore her leg out from under her. Somehow, she turned that into a somersault and rolled away, unhurt, to land on her feet. The soldier got up and went for her. She snatched the coffee pot off the fire and made to throw its contents in his face, but he tore it away from her. Coffee spilled across the ground and hissed where it landed on the hot embers of the campfire. The soldier had a bowie knife.

Steve and Natasha both ran to intervene, but then Megan shrieked, “ _Dornröschen_!” and the soldier dropped.

Megan was left sitting there with the unconscious man in her lap and both hands over her mouth, eyes wide. Toby knelt down beside her and put an arm around her shoulders.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Megan accepted his embrace, reaching to grip his hand with both of hers. “Yeah, I'm okay, he didn't... I'm okay.”

Steve pulled the knife out of the man's fingers and tossed it away. “Pack up,” he said. “We're leaving.”

“No need to say that twice,” Natasha agreed. She went to check on Laura.

Toby helped Megan up. She was trembling and unsteady. When Steve had fought hr in the parking lot of her restaurant she'd been poised and in control, and she must have behaved similarly in the initial attack in order to pin the soldier as she had. What was upsetting her now wasn't that the clone had leaped up and tried to stab her, it was her own reaction to that.

“I couldn't think of anything else.” Megan stared down at unconscious soldier. “I couldn't... I just panicked. I could have... I'm so stupid...” she covered her face.

“It's okay. It's okay,” Toby told her. “Hey, look – all that practice paid off, anyway. I didn't pass out and neither did you! We beat it.” He squeezed her shoulders. “We beat it.” He tried to lead her away from the man, but she hung back.

“What are we gonna _do_ with him? It's not like we can just leave him here, but we can't take him with us! Are we going to have to kill him?” She looked at Steve, tears in her eyes. “Don't _look_ at me like that!” she ordered.

Steve realized he was staring, and quickly turned his gaze. So that was what Peggy would have looked like in tears. Steve had never seen Peggy cry. In the worst situations while everybody _else_ was breaking down, Peggy had been the one telling them to get off their asses and do what needed to be done – there'd be time to grieve later. The closest he'd ever gotten to tears from Peggy was that last moment on the radio, as she'd begged him to give her his coordinates...

Why the hell hadn't he just listened to her? If he hadn't been so damned determined to commit suicide, the SSR would probably have found him within a few days and he could have been painting in Central Park right now instead of dealing with clones and aliens and interdimensional vikings and god knew what was coming next?

“I could have just hit him,” Megan moaned. “Why did I _do_ that?”

“You did it because it was easiest,” Natasha said, businesslike, as she pulled the soldier's helmet off. Underneath it his hair was dyed a surprising shade of magenta. Steve wondered what the colour meant. A batch marker, maybe, or an indication of his job, like how different ants in a colony looked different depending on whether they were workers or soldiers? “It wasn't nice, but it was expedient. In our line of work you use what's available whether you like it or not. Are we done here?” she asked, looking Megan in the eye. “Because we have to leave before fifty more of the come down on us.”

“Right. Right. Of course,” said Megan distractedly, and finally allowed Toby to lead her away. Natasha waited until their backs were turned, then took out her glock again and put a bullet very precisely in the base of the clone soldier's skull. He didn't even twitch.

Even though she wasn't watching, Megan winced. “This is why I'm a lousy field agent,” she said, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

“Yes, it is,” Natasha agreed, but her voice was not cold.

Toby got Megan inside while Steve and Laura helped the Professor down from the top of the camper. Sam and Natasha, meanwhile, searched the dead clones' bodies for weapons and then hoisted the corpses themselves to the roof and tied them down with rope and bungee cords.

“Why are we taking them?” the Professor protested.

“Because if we leave them here and somebody finds them, then it's obvious what happened to them,” Natasha replied. “If they're only _missing_ , then looking for _them_ will use up time and resources that they're not using trying to find _us_. Steve did say that they don't _quite_ consider the clones expendable.”

“We do, apparently,” Megan said miserably.

Natasha hopped down from the roof of the camper and grabbed Megan's shoulders. “They are _made_ to be expendable,” she said. “They're identical, dependable, and _disposable_ – exactly what HYDRA wants from its subjects. If you guys were failures to Sutter and Fenstermacher, it's because you are _not_ those things. You're individuals.” She looked at Toby and repeated the words she'd used on board the _Uatumã_. “Your own people, first, last, and always.”

Megan started to wiggle away, then looked up as she realized something. “ _You_ didn't use the code word on them.”

“I didn't have to,” said Natasha. “I had a gun, and I didn't know if they would respond to it anyway. You thought it was worth the risk to try, and it was.” She let go of Megan's shoulders and sighed. “You can't beat yourself up every time you have to bend your own moral code. If I did that I would have shot myself long ago.”

“But I'm not like you!” Megan protested, and then put her hands over her mouth again as she realized how that could be interpreted. She hadn't said it in anger, though, her tone had been more that of desperate pleading, and Natasha understood that.

“Good,” she said. “You wouldn't want to be.”

Megan nodded.

With the remains of the fire scattered and the clone soldiers stowed, everybody piled back into the camper. Professor Díaz and Sam rode in the cab, with Pablo the monkey running around and squealing in agitation.

“I'll watch for hostiles,” Sam told the Professor. “You just drive.”

“Yes, Sir, Mr. Falcon!” said the Professor, and put the truck in gear.

“So what did you guys see?” Natasha asked, as Professor Díaz made a rather hair-raising u-turn on the narrow road.

“I'll show you,” said Toby. He'd taken the SD card out of the Professor's camera, and now he inserted it into a computer he'd found in a drawer under one of the seats – a very heavy black laptop that appeared to be at least ten years old, covered in stickers depicting cartoon sea creatures. The pictures he'd taken were fuzzy at the edges, but but there was a circular area in the middle that was crystal-clear. The first few showed clouds of steam rising out of the chimneys in the hospital roof.

“Is the volcano erupting?” Megan asked. “God, that's the _last_ thing we need!”

“We couldn't get that lucky,” Steve said darkly. A major eruption would have neatly eliminated Fenstermacher and his clones from Steve's current list of problems without him having to do a damned thing. “They've stepped up the power plant. I think they're giving more clones the serum.”

“They're definitely mobilizing equipment,” Toby agreed. Even with his remarkable talent for optics, the people in the photos were no more than specks. But it was definitely possible to see vehicles and men moving around on a grand scale. The helicopter wreckage had been cleared away from the fence, and through the gap, ranks of people were marching _in_ to the hospital. Steve had been right. They were taking what they had and getting ready to go, determined to put their plan into motion before Steve and his friends could warn anyone.

“We should have left last night,” said Steve. “We've gotta get to Buenos Aires ahead of them and warn the congress.” They couldn't do that in a pickup truck, not when HYDRA had those troop transport helicopters that could do two hundred miles per hour. “We could send a message, but we don't know if anybody will believe us or act upon it.” He looked at Toby. Toby was the one who'd been genetically engineered to be a genius. Maybe he could come up with an idea.

But it was Natasha who replied. “We need to get the quinjet back.”

This seemed to Steve like a complete non sequitur. “The _quinjet_?” he asked, staring at her. How could she still be thinking about the quinjet? It could be anywhere on the continent. HYDRA might have dumped it in the ocean. It might be in a hangar back in Rio. It might have been destroyed. There had to be something better than...

“Roof of the hospital,” Natasha said. “You never looked?”

Steve blinked and turned to the computer, which was still displaying Toby's photos. Toby scrolled through them and found one which showed the hospital in some detail, and through the clouds of steam billowing up from the chimneys a familiar shape was just barely visible. Sure enough, there it was, sitting on a helipad on the roof above Fenstermacher's office. The _A_ logo stenciled on the side proved that it was, indeed, Stark's. Steve, Roger, and Dr. Kinney had been ten feet from escape and had never realized it.

The troop helicopters would take six to eight hours to get to Buenos Aires. The quinjet could do it in a third of that time.

“All right,” said Steve. “We get the quinjet back.” He swallowed. “We need a plan.” Just bashing their way in, as he and Roger had tried to just bash their way out, was not going to work a second time. “Anybody?”

“I've got one,” Sam said from up front, “but you're not going to like it much. How'd Luke and Han Solo sneak into the Death Star?”

“I don't know,” said Steve. “How?”


	21. The Death Star Stratagem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: this one gets a little gruesome towards the end. Read at your own risk.

They weren't safe yet – the helicopter was still circling, searching for Steve, Laura, and their accomplices. Professor Díaz backed the camper into a recess in the mountainside, where a large overhanging tree hid all but the front fender. Steve and Sam draped the Professor's camouflage jackets over it and then everybody crouched in the weeds around the vehicle, ready to scatter if necessary. The thunder of the rotor was almost unbearably loud, seemingly only a few feet above them – then, mercifully, it faded. The vehicle moved away, following the old gravel road. One by one, everybody started breathing again.

“Anyway, you were saying?” Steve said to Sam.

Steve had never seen _Star Wars_ , but he had absorbed a certain amount of information about it through cultural osmosis. He knew that Luke Skywalker and Han Solo were the heroes of the story, and that they were space outlaws who may or may not have some kind of magical powers. Based on that knowledge, he was slightly disappointed when Sam explained how they _had_ gotten into the Death Star. He would have expected magical space outlaws to come up with something a little better than just putting on the bad guys' uniforms and hoping nobody looked too close.

On the other hand, Skywalker and Solo had been working with limited resources and zero time – and so were Steve and his friends. Under the circumstances, he supposed they could do worse.

While Sam and Natasha got the dead soldiers down off the camper roof to strip them of their uniforms and weapons, Steve found a pair of scissors. “Can anybody here cut hair properly?” he asked, and looked at Megan. She'd done a decent job on Natasha's. Maybe she could give Steve a military buzz like the clones had.

“I'll give it a try,” she said, then frowned as Natasha rolled the purple-haired clone down the bloodstained truck hood. “Were there any with their natural colour?”

That was a good point. “I think the ones in the troop helicopter did,” said Steve, but he was no longer sure. The light in there hadn't been very good, and Steve didn't trust himself to judge colours anyway. He'd spent the first twenty years of his life almost unaware of them.

“I have an idea!” the Professor announced, and climbed into the camper to start rummaging through cupboards.

Steve sat down on a folding chair, and Megan began cutting off his hair in clumps, getting as close to the scalp as possible. His hair had been getting shorter with every trim, ever since he woke up at SHIELD – this time next year he'd probably be bald.

Out of the three dead soldiers, Natasha and Sam managed to put together not quite two usable uniforms. The one Natasha had shot in the face had his fatigues intact, but the visor of his helmet had a bullet hole in it. The one Laura had slashed had a usable helmet, but the rest of his clothes were cut to ribbons and stiff with blood. The third, the one Megan had taken down with the code word, had only a little bit of blood on his clothes, but his helmet had been left behind at the campsite.

“Something tells me I better take the helmet,” said Sam, stepping into one of the black coveralls. “So if Natasha's our prisoner, that makes her Chewbacca. I call Han Solo – so Steve will have to be Luke.”

Natasha made an incoherent moaning noise. “That's Wookiee for _Steve had better be Solo_ ,” she said. “Solo was the one who did the talking, and he'll sound more like the clones than you will. Besides,” she smirked. “You're the one who's a little short for a storm trooper.”

“If we're lucky everybody will be too busy to challenge us,” Steve said.

“We're not usually very lucky,” Natasha pointed out. “If anyone stops us, explain that you're taking me to the hospital so they can study how the Red Room altered _my_ body.” Her tone and face as she said this were both blandly matter-of-fact, and Steve wondered exactly what emotions she was suppressing. Anger? Regret? Disgust? Or was she actually as blasé about her past as she pretended to be?

“Either way,” he said, “it's gotta be an in-and-out, no side trips if we can possibly avoid it. We head up top, grab the jet, and come back here to pick you guys up.” Steve nodded towards Toby, Laura, and the Professor, though the statement also encompassed Megan, behind him.

“We could help,” Megan said. “The code word doesn't affect me or Toby anymore! I didn't even get a headache.” She seemed to have decided that Natasha was right – if she had a weapon the other clones didn't, she may as well use it.

But it was Natasha who shook her head. “It didn't affect you when _you_ said it and Toby knew it wasn't directed at him,” she pointed out. “When an authority figure says it _at you_ , it might be different. Conditioning like that isn't easy to overcome. Besides, we don't know what other commands you might have.”

Toby nodded, his face resigned. Megan just continued trimming Steve's hair – possibly pulling a bit harder than strictly necessary.

“I want to come,” said Laura.

She had rarely spoken without being spoken _to_ first, so her voice startled everybody. It was probably good that she was asserting herself, but Steve knew he had to tell her no.

“It's too dangerous,” he said. “They can still control you, too.” Toby and Megan had at least had an opportunity to practice resisting the code word. Laura hadn't had the time yet – and even if she had, the nature of what her code word _did_ and the fact that they didn't know how to counteract it made it too dangerous to try.

“I want to come,” she insisted. “I'm going to kill Sutter.”

“Oh,” said Steve – an for a moment he honestly didn't know how to follow that. Obviously Laura couldn't come with them just for the sake of a revenge mission – but Steve had a sudden flash memory of Bucky's terrified face dropping away fro him into the snowy canyon, and the loss and rage associated with that moment. Like a gaping hole had been torn in his middle and the only way to close it was to make sure everybody responsible for this _paid_ , even if it took seventy goddamn years. It took him a moment to come back to himself, and by then Natasha had already answered for him.

“That won't bring Dr. Kinney back,” she said.

“He made me kill her,” said Laura.

“It won't make you feel any better.” Natasha had been checking whether there was ammo in the dead soldiers' guns – now she set those aside and stood up to face Laura. “Revenge isn't justice – it's just more murder, more blood on your hands.” She glanced briefly down at her own before looking Laura in the eye again. “You don't want that. Xavier would tell you to let it go.”

“It'd never pass, anyway,” Sam said. “We couldn't get you in. They might buy two clones capturing Natasha...”

“Especially if I were already injured,” Natasha said, and took two steps in an extremely convincing limp.

“But they'll never believe we managed to nab you, too,” Sam said. “They know what you're capable of. You'd better stay with Toby and Megan.”

“I know how to fly the jet, too,” Natasha put in. “We don't know what's going to happen in there. We need to know any one of us can fly out if the other two are injured or killed. You can't do that.”

Laura sat down again, but she was scowling – she'd been trained to accept the authority of others, but that didn't mean she had to _like_ it.

“You can have your shot against Sutter later, in court,” Steve promised her. “Not in a fight. That's how the good guys do things.” Justice, not revenge... hindsight made it so much easier to tell the difference. “If things go bad,” he added, “you and the others have to get to Buenos Aires any way you can and deliver the computer and the address book. If you can't get them to the President before the coup, go back to Brazil or the States and give them to the authorities... somebody we trust, like General Cordero or Captain da Silva. Laura – you, Toby, and Megan have all been _part_ of the program. You know it better than any of us do. If _anybody_ lives to tell people about it, you're the ones with the most answers. That's another reason why it's best if you guys sit this one out.”

“We might be able to rescue you...” Toby began.

Steve cut him off. “Not an option. Don't try. If we make it, we make it. If we don't, don't risk yourselves. We're superheroes. You're just...”

“Clones,” Megan finished for him, yanking on his hair particularly hard.

Steve winced. “I was going to say _people_.”

Megan finished trimming away the majority of Steve's hair, and then went over his head with an electric razor to get it all down to about a quarter of an inch. There was a thump and a crash from inside the camper, and Steve worried that the Professor may have hurt himself, but a moment later he emerged, triumphantly holding up a bottle of stain he used to prepare microscope slides. It wasn't _quite_ the same pinkish-purple as the dead clones' hair, but it was closer than anything else they were likely to find at such short notice.

Steve, with his new haircut, and Sam, with the helmet on, each took one of the dead soldiers' guns and struck what they hoped were intimidating poses.

“Well?” Sam asked. “How do we look?”

“It'll be more convincing if you don't smile,” Toby said.

“Other than that, you should pass for Evil Minions quite nicely,” Natasha decided. “Just no matter what happens, don't _run_.”

Steve was puzzled for a moment before remembering that he and Natasha were both enhanced. “Right. Don't want to leave Sam behind,” he said with a nod.

“No, because you run like a moron,” Natasha said. “Three steps and they'll know it's you.”

Sam laughed, while Steve blinked at her in confusion. “What's wrong with how I run?”

“You have a very distinctive run,” Natasha told him. “Whenever those old moves used your stunt double I can always tell right away because _he_ runs like a normal guy.”

Steve frowned at her for a moment, while Sam continued to snicker. “Is this your way of lightening the mood?”

“Yep,” said Natasha. She gave Sam a hank of blue nylon rope, then turned around with her hands behind her back. “Tie my wrists,” she ordered. “And don't fake it – they'll be able to tell. I can get out of it when I need to. Tie me up like you _mean_ it.”

Sam nodded. “This isn't how I pictured a woman saying that to me,” he remarked, “but I'll take it.”

Once the knots were in place, Natasha tugged on them a little and then nodded. “That'll do. In the words of Chewbacca,” and she made another horrible moaning sound.

“You can say _that_ again,” Sam agreed.

The banter then ceased, or at least slowed, as they said goodbye to the others and headed over the hill towards the complex. Toby, Megan, Laura, and the Professor had instructions to wait no more than two hours, and then leave whether the superheroes came back for them or not. Natasha fell into her limping walk, which made Steve want to offer her an arm to lean on – even knowing she was faking it, it looked painful.

At one point she stumbled in a hole in the ground – Steve couldn't tell if this were real or part of her act – and Sam reached to catch her. That brought Steve's attention to something he'd overlooked earlier. “Keep your hands down,” he told Sam. The clone soldiers' uniforms had gloves, but they were fingerless – it was the only place where Sam's skin showed.

“Don't worry,” said Sam, “I'll just tell them it's soot from last night's cross-burning.”

Based on Natasha's amused snort, Steve decided that must be a reference.

Another helicopter passed over them as they got closer. It didn't circle – in fact, it didn't acknowledge them in any way Steve could see, but he was sure they'd been noticed. How could they _not_ be, with his hair dyed that bright purple pink? Maybe _that_ was why the colours – it made their soldiers easy to identify from a distance. But he was nervous now. What if the helicopter _had_ given some kind of signal and he'd missed it? What if they'd blown their cover before they even got within sight of the complex?

They emerged from the trees, and there was the compound spread out in the valley below them. Steve had thought it had been busy a couple of days ago when he first arrived in it, but that was nothing compared to the activity now. Steam was billowing out of the power plant in clouds that hung overhead and made the air hot and damp, and literally _hundreds_ of clones were up and moving around. Most of them hadn't had the serum yet, but it looked as if it wouldn't be long now – in the absence of enough buildings, they were being put through exercises, tests, vaccinations, and checkups, all out in the open air. Scientists, doctors, and other personnel were everywhere. Steve felt a troubled flutter in his stomach as he watched. The clones looked like near-grown men, but if what Luke Finster had said in Colorado was correct then they were only weeks old. Their faces were blank, and their body language stiff and unnatural.

Steve and Sam stood up straight and tried to mimic the slightly robotic walk as they headed in, Natasha limping and stumbling between them. Nobody stopped them as they passed through the rows of trailers. Natasha normally walked like a queen, but it seemed that she could just as easily walk like a scared prisoner with two guns on her. Her head was bowed, and if she were working her way out of her bonds, Steve certainly hadn't noticed it. It was enough to make him wonder why one of the few people he really _trusted_ was the one he _knew_ could assume whatever role she liked.

They reached the electric fence. The gap where the helicopter had torn through it had not been repaired, or even patched, but the wreckage had been cleared away and a couple of workers in big gloves and hard hats were taking apart the smashed remains of the utility box. Not far away, a man in a khaki vest was standing with his back to them, talking to a shorter, balding man in blue scrubs about something on a clipboard. Steve hoped the one in the vest wasn't Sutter, but as Natasha had observed earlier, their luck was not that good. Maybe he wouldn't turn around, and they could just pass him by unnoticed.

The balding orderly glanced up as they passed, and grabbed Sutter's arm. “Dr. Sutter!” he exclaimed.

Shit.

Sutter turned, and Steve and Sam quickly stood up straight to salute him.

“What are you _doing_?” Sutter demanded. “Don't take your guns off her, you idiots!”

They quickly pointed the weapons at Natasha again. Steve thought she _might_ have shaken her head slightly at them, as if even _she_ knew better than _that_.

“Better.” Sutter came closer, frowning at the capture. “Where on earth did you find _this_?” he asked, putting a hand under Natasha's chin to force her face up. She jerked her head as if trying to dislodge his fingers, but not hard enough to actually make him let go.

It was Steve's job to do the talking. He had the right voice. “Edge of the compound, Sir,” he said. “She was looking for a vantage point to spy on us.”

 _You're a terrible liar_. The memory of Natasha's voice echoed in his head.

“The Black Widow.” Sutter's frown relaxed into _almost_ a smile. “Trying to rescue your Captain, only to be captured by a perimeter patrol? I'm disappointed! The stories made you sound so much more formidable than that!” He let go of her and took a step back. “Kill her.”

“Dr. Sutter!” the man in the scrubs said again. “The Black Widows are supposed to have been altered genetically as well as given a Soviet version of the serum. Her physiology and DNA might help us figure...”

“We'll get what we can from her corpse,” Sutter cut him off with a dismissive wave. “I'm already in the doghouse and I won't make any more mistakes. Kill her. _Now_.” He glared at Steve and Sam.

Steve couldn't make eye contact with Sam through the latter's helmet, but he didn't need to in order to know that they were both thinking the same thing: there was no way out now. They were going to have to blow their cover and fight their way through. Unless Natasha herself had a better idea... Steve looked at her, and found her waiting for eye contact. She nodded slightly – and then she drove her elbow into Sam's gut.

Sam clearly hadn't expected that, any more than Steve had – he doubled up and dropped his gun, and Natasha grabbed him by the collar and swung him into Steve, leaving the two of them in a sprawled, gasping heap on the grass.

Steve picked himself up to see the balding orderly running for his life, clipboard and papers abandoned on the ground. Natasha was running towards the hospital, her limp abandoned, while Sutter went for Steve's fallen gun. To stop him getting it, Steve pretended to try to grab it at the same time, deliberately knocking his own head into Sutter's. Sutter fell backwards, cursing and rubbing his head. The still-fresh specimen stain in Steve's hair had left a big purple splotch on the other man's forehead.

“God-damned rock-headed _clones_!” Sutter howled, kicking Steve in the shoulder. It was the one that still wasn't _quite_ healed from Laura stabbing through it, and Steve had to restrain both a cry of pain and an urge to rip Sutter's leg off.

Get up and _go after her_!” Sutter ordered, pointing an imperious finger in the direction Natasha had gone.

Steve and Sam grabbed their guns to follow Natasha, and Steve's brain slowly caught up with what had just happened. By making a break for it, Natasha had let Steve and Sam maintain their cover. By running _towards_ the hospital, she'd given them a reason to go in that direction without Sutter wondering why. Steve smiled to himself as he ran – it was nice to know that _somebody_ on this team had a Plan B. Sometimes it was nice to know somebody even had a Plan _A_.

Natasha took a running leap and vaulted gracefully onto the fire escape. Steve grabbed the hanging ladder and swung himself up in a front flip that would have made a gymnast proud. Sam scrambled to follow them, and Steve paused to help him.

“She told you not to run!” Sam said as Steve pulled him up.

“A little late for that now,” Steve replied. All three of them rattled up the metal stairs while Steve kept glancing over his shoulder, wondering if Natasha had been right – had anybody below recognized his run? Sutter was standing in the middle of the grass yelling orders at people, rubbing his bruised head with one hand and pointing towards the building with the other. They were going to have company, but that company would be after Natasha, not Steve and Sam, and they had enough of a head start that this might actually work. They should reach the quinjet and be able to take off without anybody realized that all three were interlopers.

Then Sutter looked at his left hand. The purple dye that had transferred to his scalp was now smeared on his palm.

Shit, shit, _shit_.

“Sutter's onto us!” he called.

“I told you not to run!” Natasha replied as she jumped onto the roof.

Steve didn't bother to correct her. He climbed up and reached down to drag Sam after himself. Most of the hospital roof was gravel, sloped slightly to shed rainwater into a surrounding trough, but there was a raised metal platform for a helicopter to land, and the jet was sitting on that.

“Black Widow!” Natasha shouted to the computer. “Open it up!”

The hatch in the back opened and the ramp lowered. Steve saw Natasha's hair suddenly stand up from her head as she leaped onto the platform without bothering to use the stairs, and he wondered if there'd been a sudden gust of wind. Then he climbed up himself, and felt his scalp prickle as a copper taste rose in his throat. The platform was electrified, although apparently not in such a way as to shock them. What was the point of that?

“Don't touch anything,” Natasha ordered the men.

“Whoa,” said Sam, as he, too, encountered the phenomenon. “What's that for?”

 _I'm afraid that is a powerful electric field serving to hold the jet in place_ , said the familiar voice of Stark's computer. _The skin of the aircraft has been given a positive charge, while the landing pad is negative. It will not be possible to fly away until the field is deactivated._

“How do we turn it off?” asked Natasha.

 _I do not know. The power source is external. May I ask where the other two young people are?_ JARVIS inquired. _Sir is curious to meet his duplicate_.

The power source was external – probably the same plant in the basement that provided power for everything else, Steve, thought. Toby probably could have shut it off from here the way he'd turned off the power in Cheyenne mountain, but Toby wasn't with them. Somebody was going to have to go back down there and turn it off by hand. Steve was the only member of the party who knew how to get there, so it was down to him – and he would have to do it _right_ this time. Flicking a switch wasn't enough. A switch could be turned back on.

“Natasha,” he said, “do you still have that knife lock pick thing of yours? How does it work?”

She took it out of her pocket and handed it to him. “Liquid nitrogen. It makes the components shrink and retract.”

“How much is in there?” Steve wanted to know.

She gave the thing a critical look and a shake. “A couple of millilitres. It doesn't take much to do a door.”

Steve hoped it would be enough. “Guard the plane,” he said, handing Natasha his gun. “As soon as the field is off, you guys fly away. You can pick me up once I'm out of the building. If I don't show in the first five minutes, forget me and go get the others.”

“Five minutes.” Natasha nodded. She and Sam headed up into the jet, and the computer shut the hatch behind them.

Steve dived over the edge of the roof and swung himself through the window into Fenstermacher's office. He could hear shouting and gunfire, both of them probably directed at him. It was tempting to look back and see what was going on in the yard below, but Steve couldn't afford that. If he stopped, he became a sitting target.

He dashed into the hallway, plowing through a group of people standing there discussing something in Spanish. There were cries of surprise and indignation, but Steve paid them no mind. He took the steps in the stairwell three and four at a time. Footsteps were coming up from below, but Steve assumed he could just shove his way through _that_ group, too. Until Sutter had time to spread the alarm properly, everybody would believe he was just another clone.

He assumed wrong. At the second floor landing, he met with two ranks of clones coming up from below. They were all without helmets – half of them had hair dyed black, the other in fire-engine red.

“That's the one!” Sutter's voice shouted.

The clones moved in to surround him. Steve tried to go back up, but a navy-haired group burst in from the floor above. Within a few seconds he was hemmed in on all sides. He didn't have his shield – it would have ruined his disguise. He was going to have to think of something...

Sutter pushed his way to the front and held out a purple-stained hand. “Nice try,” he said to Steve, and then nodded to the clones. “Kill him.”

Steve shut his eyes and gritted his teeth. Hopefully Natasha and Sam could figure out some other way to get the jet off the ground. They were smart people. Surely they could...

“Why isn't anybody _listening_ to me today?” Sutter demanded. “I said _kill him!_ ”

Steve opened his eyes again. The clones were still all around him with their guns up, but none of them looked about to pull a trigger.

“Sir, our orders are to never shoot one of us,” a soldier said.

“He is _not_ one of you!” Sutter raged.

The clones had very little facial expression, but now they seemed uneasy, glacing from Steve to Sutter and back again, shifting their weight from foot to foot in indecision. Steve had the right face, the right clothes, the right hair, the right voice. They seemed to have been able to tell he was a target when he'd been dressed in the bright red jumpsuit. Now, when he looked like one of their own, they were faced with a subtle distinction that their force-fed, accelerated educations had not prepared them for.

“Oh, for fuck's sake!” Sutter snarled. He snatched a gun from the nearest clone to shoot Steve himself.

Steve tensed again as possible plans flashed through his head – if he got the gun away from Sutter, would the clones begin to consider him a threat again? Or because they all had the same weapon would he still count as one of them? Maybe if...

Then somebody further down the steps screamed. Sutter turned his head, and Steve seized the moment of distraction to wrench the weapon out of his hands. That, however, was a mistake – as soon as he attacked Sutter, the clones seemed to make up their minds that he was an enemy after all. They descended on him, grabbing his arms and legs and pulling him away from their master. Steve could take one or two at a time while armed with his shield. Without it, facing eight or ten of them at once, he had no chance.

There was another scream and a series of gunshots, very loud in the enclosed space of the stairwell. Had somebody come to rescue Steve? He hoped not – he'd told everybody specifically _not_ to do that!

Then, through the crowd of clones, Steve saw a flash of red, white, and blue. Bullets bounced off a metal object, making a very familiar _thwonk_ sound.

A nearby soldier tried to grab somebody, then howled in pain and fell down the stairs – and there was Laura, covered in blood and carrying Steve's shield.

“I told you to stay with the Professor!” Steve told her.

“I'm here for Sutter!” she replied. Another clone came at her, and she put a clawed fist through his face. One tried from the other side, and she hit him with the edge of the shield.

Sutter himself decided to run. “Get _her_ ,” he ordered the clones, and headed up the stairs. The clones holding Steve dropped him and went to join the melee, and Sutter nearly fell over him. On reflex, Steve grabbed him by the ankle. Sutter cursed, kicked Steve in the face, and yanked his foot free, only to lose his balance, tumble back down the steps, and land on top of a pair of dead clones. He rolled off them and tried once again to flee, this time going _down_.

Laura saw him go. She stabbed another clone and then went after him. Steve had no choice but to follow.

“Can I have my shield back?” he called to her.

She threw it to him. Steve caught it and whipped it around in time to deflect a shower of bullets from the clones who were still standing.

“Laura!” Steve said as he followed her down. “I'm going back to the power plant. There's an electric field keeping the plane on the pad and we have to turn it off!” As long as she was here, he may as well take advantage of the help – he just hoped Toby, Megan, and the Professor had waited outside the compound like he'd told them to. If they'd come in, as well... god, they'd never _find_ them all if they were split up, and if the clones were still susceptible to the code word, they'd be utterly defenseless.

“After I kill Sutter!” Laura said.

They reached the bottom. The roar of the turbines was even louder today, shaking doors in their frames all up and down the hallway and rattling Steve's bones, and the humidity was so heavy in the air that it was difficult to breathe. Still running for his life, Sutter dashed through the first open door, the one that led to Laura's old cell, and shut himself inside She followed and threw herself against the door, hard. Maybe the metal in her body made her heavy enough to break the lock, or maybe Sutter just hadn't had time to turn it yet, because the door burst open at once. Steve followed, and found Laura standing over Sutter as he cowered on the floor.

“ _Eurystheus_!” Sutter shrieked, yelling at the top of his lungs to try to be heard over the turbines. “ _Eurystheus!_ ” He held his hands up as if that would keep Laura off – and in that moment Steve could feel only pity for the terrified man.

But Laura wasn't doing this because she'd heard a code word that could be countered. “You made me kill Sarah!” she shouted.

“I wanted you to kill _him_!” Sutter pointed at Steve. “Kinney was just _there_! It wasn't my fault!”

“You knew she was there!” Laura screamed. “You made me kill her!”

“Please!” Sutter said. “I'm beg...” but he was cut off as she drove her claws into his neck.

Laura had cut Kinney's throat more or less by accident. This was entirely purposeful, and took Sutter's head right off. Blood splashed up the wall. Laura retracted her claws, then shocked Steve by picking up the fallen head and smashing it into the concrete floor twice, as if to kill the man all over again. Then she screamed and threw it away before collapsing into a sobbing heap.

Steve stood there a moment in frozen horror. He'd seen some terrible things during the war, many of them probably worse than that – but most of the time, Steve and his men had only arrived to clean up the aftermath. They hadn't had to watch it happen right in front of them, and the people who'd _done_ those awful things hadn't reacted the way Laura did. She now seemed, if anything, even more revolted by her actions than Steve was.

He wished he'd intervened, but he wasn't sure what he could have done. Now that it was over, he wished there were something he could say to Laura, but he was utterly without words. If Bucky were confronted by the people who'd turned him into the the Winter Soldier, would he try to do something like that?

Steve shook his head hard. Natasha and Sam were still on the roof with the plane, and Toby and Megan hopefully still in the woods with the Professor. There was no time to stand around and stare.

“Laura,” he said, putting a hand on her back.

“Don't touch me!” she wailed.

Steve pulled back as if afraid she'd cut his arm off – which he supposed she very well might. “Laura, I have to go shut off the electric fence and meet the jet outside! If you want a ride out, you'll have to meet us there.” Could she hear him over the machines? Was she in any state to understand his words if she could? “If you don't show, we'll have to leave you behind! I'm sorry!”

Laura said nothing, but he thought he saw her nod. In almost any other situation, Steve would have taken her with him even if he had to carry her, but now he could only leave her there, weeping on the cold cement.


	22. Steve Blows Something Up

The door to the power plant was no longer locked – in fact, it hadn't even been properly repaired. The metal Steve had bent was banged roughly back into shape, and the doors had simply been left shut with a plastic zip tie through the loops where the lock was supposed to go. Steve broke that easily and headed in.

The catwalk around the power turbines hadn't been repaired, either, although Steve was relieved to see that Roger's and Dr. Kinney's bodies had been cleared away. The generators were all running at full tilt, with heat positively radiating off them and the air was thick with steam. Steve felt as if he were being cooked alive. This had to be _dangerous_ , he thought. This had to be greater than the capacity these machines were designed to run at. Hopefully that would facilitate what he was about to do. He swung himself over the catwalk railing and landed like a cat on the concrete floor below. Everything in the room was slick with condensation.

Each turbine had a pipe in and a pipe out – these weren't in very good repair, and it didn't take Steve long to find a crack where steam was hissing out of a join. Somebody had put a piece of duct tape over it, but the pressure had torn it away and the end was flapping free, showing the badly-welded join. Steve pulled the rest of the tape off and then had to immediately bring his shield up to avoid being scalded by the blast of steam.

He hoped this worked. If it didn't, he were going to have to rip this place apart bit by bit, which would take a lot longer and hurt a lot more. Steve gritted his teeth and pushed the lock pick into the gap. As soon as he was sure it was in, he snatched his hand back and shook it, hissing through his teeth at the sting where the steam had burned him. After a brief check to make sure he still had all his fingers, Steve dropped to the floor and curled up underneath his shield to wait. How long would it take for the cooling system inside the lock pick to fail?

The answer was not very long. The heat of the volcanic steam turned the nitrogen inside the canister from liquid to gas, expanding it far beyond the device's capacity to contain. That explosion, in turn, tore the turbine to pieces. Alarms went off. Steam rolled into the room in choking, stinging, _boiling_ clouds. Equipment threw off showers of sparks as the water-saturated air shorted out the circuits. A flying turbine blade bounced off Steve's shield, while another embedded itself in the wall and a third crashed into the next machine over, tearing a hole in it.

Meanwhile, the break Steve had forced the lock pick through ripped open further, venting even _more_ steam into the room. Steve had to pull his shirt up over his mouth so he could breathe, and even then it was a struggle. He could feel the sweat running down the small of his back and tickling the insides of his knees, but he wasn't going to leave until he was absolutely _certain_ the base had no power.

The lights flickered out. Sparks rained down from one of the fixtures and sizzled as they bounced off the shield. Steve could smell electrical smoke.

The other turbines continued to roar, but they were quickly losing momentum as the steam that was supposed to power them hissed out into the room. Finally, red emergency lighting came on – _that_ was Steve's cue that they no longer had electricity to spare. Holding his shield over his head to protect himself from flying sparks and any more parts from the turbines, he fumbled his way through the darkness to the ladder and climbed back up to the catwalk.

As he pushed the doors back open to return to the hall, a light suddenly flared in his face, its beam clearly defined by the steam in the air. Steve held up a hand to shield his eyes, squinting through the red-lit haze to see who was there. The last time he'd gotten a flashlight in the face had been when Megan and Toby came for the three superheroes in the basement at Cheyenne Mountain. If they were here now, Steve would be furious – but at the same time he'd be damned glad to see them. Maybe all three could get out together, and take Laura with them.

“Megan?” he called out. With the generators winding down to nothing, he didn't need to scream to be heard. After that constant noise, the relative quiet made his ears ring.

There was no reply – only the sharp popping sound of a gun being fired. With the light in his eyes, Steve couldn't see where the attacker was aiming or even who it was. The first bullet bounced harmlessly off his shield. A second hit him in the calf.

Steve had been shot before, so he knew what it felt like – people who hadn't had that experience always underestimated the inertia of a bullet. It was like being hit in the leg with a baseball bat. Stee dropped to one knee and took a couple of deep breaths, biting down hard on the yowl of pain that wanted to come out. _Captain America did not scream in pain_. After a couple of deep breaths he forced himself to stand again and started towards the door, holding on to the railing to support himself. He was also heading towards whoever was there with the flashlight and gun, but he couldn't go the other way. The emergency exit was the quickest way out.

“Stop where you are, Captain Rogers!” a voice ordered.

The voice was hoarse and soft, as if the speaker didn't have the energy to actually shout. Steve stood still as he realized he wasn't sure who or what he was facing. There might be a hundred clones behind that flashlight, in which case rushing them would be reckless. Steve would still _do_ it, of course, but he wanted to _know_ what he'd be going down fighting, so he could take as many of them with him as possible.

Steam rolled by. The last turbine whined to a standstill. The flashlight beam bobbed closer, until its source could be seen through the mist, and then the fire behind it.

It wasn't a group of clones. Nor was it Fenstermacher. In fact, the man's identity and even his age were impossible to determine. His head was bandaged and he had a big bruise on the right side of his face, including part of his right eye stained from a burst blood vessel in the sclera. The flashlight was tucked under his left arm, which was in a sling. His right arm, raised to hold up the gun, was bleeding where he'd torn an IV line out of it. He was dressed in blue plaid pajama pants and a heather Grey t-shirt with the words _U S Air Force_ across the front. His stance was wide, as if he were afraid of falling over, and the hand holding the gun was shaking hard.

What now? If Steve had found a battalion of clones, or other soldiers or mercenaries, he would have downed as many as possible before they could overcome him. Facing this man, he just stood there staring. Captain America wasn't going to to beat up somebody who obviously belonged in a hospital, not even when that somebody clearly wanted to kill him. Steve couldn't do that, not any more than he could have punched Roger in the police station parking lot for insulting him.

The t-shirt, the broken arm... Steve had seen a young military man with a bandaged arm not long ago. This had to be Randy Finster.

Steve's brain raced. Randy hated Sutter and his 'brothers', and Fenstermacher didn't trust him – but he was also a damned good shot when he needed to be, and what he currently lacked in coordination he seemed prepared to make up for with determination. Maybe Steve could talk him down. If he couldn't, he was going to have to hurt him even worse than he already was. That wouldn't be difficult, but Steve would hate himself for it.

“Randy,” Steve said, and then inhaled sharply as sweat ran into his bullet room. He tried to ignore it. He was Captain America. He was stronger than pain. “It's Randy, right? What are you trying to do? Impress Fenstermacher?”

The young man didn't reply. In the semi-darkness, Steve couldn't read his expression.

“Who did that to you.” Steve pointed to the bandages and bruising on the young man's head.

“Sutter,” Finster croaked. His voice was hesitant. Hopefully, that meant he was listening. Steve didn't have much time. He'd told Natasha and Sam five minues.

“Randy,” Steve repeated. “Listen to me. You can't impress these people.” Randy Finster was still young enough to have a real life outside of HYDRA, just like Laura was. “You're just a number to Sutter. He called you _Number Five_. He beat you up.” Had that been a punishment for what Finster had said to Steve? Finster had reminded Sutter that Fenstermacher wouldn't let him be shot, but maybe beating him half to death was allowed. “And Fenstermacher,” Steve added, “even if you get to be his favourite, he'll kill you for it. Getting to be his host just means he transplants his brain into your body, right? Do you really _want_ that?”

Was he getting through? Randy hadn't shot him again. That was something.

“You can still get away from here and have a life of your own. That's all Megan and Toby want. It's all Laura wants.” Steve swallowed. “It's what _Rudy_ wanted, Randy. Sutter is dead, and no matter what he's told you, you don't owe Fenstermacher anything.”

Very slowly, Randy began to lower the gun, blinking at Steve in apparent disbelief. “You... you want to take me _with_ you?”

Was that what Steve was proposing? It might not be a good idea. Randy Finster had tricked him, Sam, and Natasha all at Cheyenne Mountain – although at the time, none of them had _expected_ to find an enemy within the Air Force. Randy was just one person, though, and he was recovering from what must have been a very serious beating. Even with a bullet in his leg, Steve was sure he could handle _one_ angry young man if he turned on them again. For the moment, he decided, it was time to do whatever kept him from being shot again.

“My friends are gonna pick me up outside,” Steve said. “You can come to Buenos Aires with us.”

Randy lowered the gun. “Show me.”

Since neither of them could walk properly, the two men leaned on each other as they limped up the stairs to the emergency exit. Outside, staff and operatives who'd evacuated the building when the alarms went off were milling around, confused and afraid. Immature clones were standing in tidy lines, staring blankly at the wall of the building or off into the distance. The steam released from the damaged generators hugged the ground like a fog, condensing on everything and making it impossible to see more than about fifty feet ahead.

“Where's Fenstermacher?” Steve asked. Of the three people they'd come here thinking they would find in charge of the project, Sutter and Kinney were now both dead. Fenstermacher was the only one unaccounted for.

“His legs were crushed in the helicopter crash,” Finster replied. “They had to rush him into surgery.”

“There he is!” a voice exclaimed.

Steve raised his head to see the balding orderly, the one who'd fled in fear when Natasha made her escape. He was directing a dozen clones with their hair dyed lime-green.

“That's the fake one! The one who helped the Widow get in! He's got...” the man's face blanched visibly when he saw who Steve was accompanied by.

Steve found himself wondering what _Natasha_ would have done in this situation, and then decided he knew what the answer was. He grabbed Randy's arm and held his shield against the young man's neck. “Play along!” he whispered, and then shouted: “that's right! I've got Number Five! Lower your weapons!” He backed up towards the stairs and whispered in Randy's ear. “We'll get out via the stairwell and leave through the other side of the building.” On the way he could hopefully decide what they would do _after_ that.

Before they could go back inside, a deep shuddering rumble came from somewhere underground, and an enormous cloud of steam rolled out the doors, cloaking Steve and Randy in a hot, sulfur-smelling mist. With the pipes broken, Steve realized, all the heat from the volcanic spring was going into the building instead. If they went in, they'd be cooked alive.

“This way,” he decided, and edged along the building, his injured leg burning from the constant exertion of his tensed muscles. They had to get out into the open to where Sam and Natasha would be able to see them from the plane – assuming Sam and Natasha were still in the area at all. The five minute deadline was probably up. Steve hadn't kept track. Why hadn't he kept track?

A clone soldier loomed out of the mist. Steve threw his shield at the man – it hit him in the chest, and he vanished into the fog as he fell. Steve and Randy kept moving in that direction. When they caught up, they found two more clones standing of their comrade's body, with the shield embedded in the earth at their feet.

“You're an idiot,” said Randy.

“Yeah, I know,” Steve agreed. The steam was starting to clear, and as it drifted away the two clones became four, then a dozen, then at least twenty surrounding them on all sides. Steve glanced up, but saw no sign of the quinjet – hopefully Sam and Natasha had at least escaped. He couldn't fight his way out with a bullet in his leg. There was only one possible weapon left, and it would take down Randy, too. That would be easier to deal with than all these soldiers, though.

“ _Dornröschen_!” he shouted.

Nothing happened. They were still standing. Were these not clones? No, they had to be – some of them had their helmet visors up. Why wasn't it working?

“ _Dornröschen_!” he tried again.

“You _did_ that before!” said Randy. “They all wear wires, so we heard one of the girls use that on them at your camp! There's a low-level tone fed into their comm units that nullifies the commands.”

“Oh,” said Steve. That made sense. Anybody who had created something like that would want to have a way to prevent anybody else from using it against them. But that meant he was now really, truly, thoroughly out of options. If Sam and Natasha had gotten away with the jet then HYDRA had already lost – that was comforting, but Steve had said they'd take Randy to Buenos Aires. He didn't much care if _he_ lived or died, but he liked to keep his promises.

Randy stood up as straight as he could and held out a hand to the clones. “Gentlemen,” he began, “I...”

He was cut off by a roar of engines from overhead. Steve looked up, and there was the quinjet, rising off the hospital roof. It moved slowly, turning in the air like a model hanging from a string, and descended to hover directly over Steve and Randy. The downdraft from the repulsor engines blew the rest of the steam aside and made it increasingly difficult to stand as the jet hung lower and lower above them.

 _Steve_ , Sam's voice came over a PA speaker. _Stay right where you are_.

 _Get him in the green circle_ , Natasha, slightly muffled, added.

 _I know_ , said Sam.

 _Green circle!_ Natasha repeated. Apparently neither of them knew that the microphone was still on.

 _I can_ see _the goddamn green circle!_ Sam said.

There was a sudden increase in the engine noise, and the edges of the repulsors flashed blue. A shock wave, visible as a ring of distorted air, flashed over the area. Steve and Randy felt only a breeze, but the clones were blasted back like playing cards in a hurricane. All the windows on the near side of the hospital wall smashed at once. The clump of dead trees Steve and Laura had hidden in toppled as if they'd been cut, and a jeep sitting a few yards away tipped over and then rolled away, ripping through an intact part of the electric fence and dragging the cables with it as it rammed into a trailer.

 _I told you I could see the damn circle_ , said Sam.

The jet descended a little further, and the hatch opened. Natasha tossed down the harness they'd used to drop onto the _Santo Eustáquio_. Steve grabbed his shield, then fastened the straps around Finster before looping a spare bit of rope around his own arm and just hanging on for dear life.

“Ready!” he shouted.

Natasha turned to shout over his shoulder at Sam. “They're ready!”

The two men were jerked off the ground as the plane rose again, and dangled there a moment as the compound dropped away below them. The higher thy got, the better Steve's view was – and soon encompassed the other side of the hospital, where troops were getting into helicopters. These weren't the big troop-carriers, but smaller, faster combat vehicles, like the one he'd crashed the previous day.

“Company's coming!” he shouted up.

“Got it!” Natasha replied, activating the winch to pull them up. Below, a pillar of steam suddenly erupted out of the hospital roof, blowing masonry and furniture into the sky. The combination of the volcanic venting and the shock wave weapon had been too much for the building. Slowly, but unstoppably, it was falling apart.

“You just had to blow something up after all, didn't you?” asked Sam.

“It's traditional!” Steve agreed, as Natasha dragged him on board. “We gotta have our fight-ending gratuitous explosion!” He squirmed into the jet, then stood and braced himself with his good leg to pull Finster up. As he got the injured man on board, however, he noticed a tiny figure in the middle of a fight down below. Was that...

“Wait!” he shouted, as Sam began to close the hatch. “Stop! Go back! We have to get Laura!”

“Laura?” asked Sam. “We left her back with the Professor, didn't we?”

“She didn't stay. She brought me my shield,” said Steve.

“Go back,” Natasha agreed. “We can't leave her to them.”

Sam brought the quinjet around and descended to hover again. Laura must have found another way out of the hospital and tried to make it to meet them, but now she, too, was surrounded by soldiers in the gap between two trailers. A number of them were lying dead at her feet as she stood there, claws out and panting for breath, but the rest seemed to have figured out that she couldn't hurt them unless they got closer to her. Instead they were fanned out on both sides, closing in slowly as they fired at her over and over. Laura was fast enough to swat bullets out of the air with her claws, and could recover from a bullet wound almost as quickly as she received one, but the sheer _numbers_ seemed to be wearing her down.

“ _That_ doesn't look good.” Steve pointed on the ventral display screen to a man who'd just climbed up onto the roof of one of the trailers, with a rocket launcher strapped to his back. HYDRA had decided that if they couldn't kill Laura by shooting her, they would simply blow her to pieces.

“Can we use that shockwave thing again?” Steve asked, leaning on the back of the seat so he could see over Sam's shoulder – and take the weight off his injured leg.

“Already on it.” Sam brought up the screen. A green circle appeared, superimposed on the view of the ground below. Unfortunately, that safe zone encompassed several of the soldiers as well as Laura herself.

“Gotta get lower,” said Sam. He pressed a button and spoke into th microphone. “Laura! Try to stay where you are!”

“I think you just turned it off,” Steve said.

Sam released the button. “Of course I turned it off. I'm done.”

“The light's off.” Steve pointed. “It's voice-activated. When you turned it on before you _left_ it on, and I could hear you and Natasha arguing about the green circle.”

“We weren't arguing,” Natasha told him. “We were agreeing with each other. In loud, frustrated voices.” She hit the button again, and the light came back on. “Laura! Stay put!”

Steve almost laughed. He managed to restrain himself, because this was obviously not a laughing situation, but it felt so good to participate in this kind of venomless bickering again. If they were able to snipe at one another in the midst of stressful circumstances, then they were all friends. Steve might not know who he _couldn't_ trust, but he knew who he _could_. Sam and Natasha were his friends.

Laura looked up and tried to shout something back, but inside the plane they couldn't hear what it was. They hovered lower, and the green circle shrank to encompass Laura alone. A moment later it brightened.

 _Safe zone locked_ , the computer said. _Shockwave ready_.

Sam reached to fire the weapon again, but before he could do so, the hospital building suddenly collapsed on itself in a choking cloud of rubble. Laura and her attackers vanished from sight as yellow-gray dust rolled across the landscape, swallowing everything in its path. Even through the hull of the jet and above the rumble of the engines, Steve could hear a chorus of car alarms go off in the parking lot around the front of the building. Sam quickly zoomed the display back out, looking for the edge of the cloud. As it spread, people could be seen running, driving, or even _crawling_ away from it with clothing or hands over their mouths. If they used the shockwave now it would blast the dust away, but they could no longer be sure that Laura was in the safe area.

“Open the hatch,” said Steve, hobbling over to the winch.

 _I would advise against that, Captain Rogers_ , the voice of the AI warned. _The original hospital building was constructed before 1987, and significant amounts of asbestos are likely to be present in the..._

“Shut up and _open the god-damned hatch_!” said Steve. “Sam, tell her I'm lowering a line.”

“Laura, listen,” Sam said into the microphone. “If you can hear me, we're lowering a line for you! Grab it and we'll pull you up.”

Steve dropped the cable into the cloud, keeping one hand on it to test the tension. It was like fishing, he thought – it would jerk when he had a bite. He and Bucky had tried to go fishing a couple of times on Staten Island as kids. They'd never caught anything, but he could still hear Bucky's advice: _don't get too excited when you_ think _you've got a bite. When you've_ actually _got one, you'll know_.

The line swung slowly, then suddenly went taut. Steve tensed, but didn't act. It might just be caught on something. After a moment it slackened, then gave three short jerks, followed by a pause, and another three jerks. That was an attempt at communication. That was a bite. Steve reversed the winch.

“Got somebody! Go up!” he told Sam.

The jet ascended again, at the same time as the winch reeled in whoever or whatever was on the other end of the line. Steve kept his shield up and held his breath as he watched. All he could do now was hope it was Laura on the end.

A head of what looked like blonde hair emerged from the cloud. Steve's fingers tightened on the grip of his shield, ready to use it if necessary – but then the person on the line looked up, and Steve realized it _was_ Laura. She was so thoroughly caked in dust that it was impossible to make out the colour of her hair or clothing. He set the shield down and offered an arm to pull her on board. She took it, but as he hauled her up a hand reached up from below and grabbed her ankle. Laura's eyes went wide as she looked down. A clone soldier was hanging onto her ankle.

She kicked at his fingers with her other foot and he let go, but his other hand was still on the cable and after sliding a short ways, he found his grip again and began climbing up. Steve quickly pulled Laura into the jet, then slammed the edge of his shield down on the cable. The shield dented the floor, the cable snapped under the blow, and the clone fell back into the dust.

“Close the hatch,” Steve panted.

It whirred shut.

For a few long moments, the only sound in the jet was Laura, gasping and coughing as she tried to get rid of the dust that had coated her throat. Then the computer spoke up again.

 _Asbestos poisoning has a latency period of twenty to twenty-five years_ , it said. _You may all want to ask your physicians about long-term pulmonary function monitoring_.

Laura sat up, shaking dust out of her hair, and Finster, who had so far been quiet, jumped up with a squawk of alarm. Steve turned his head to see the young man on his feet with the gun back in his trembling hand. Laura, too, scrambled upright and extended her claws, ready to defend herself.

“Whoa!” Steve lurched in between them. “No! You're both with us now, and we don't fight among ourselves.” They'd done enough of that already. No more.

Randy and Laura glared at each other for a second, then both sat down again. Steve was going to have to watch them, he realized. Finster had twice ordered Laura to kill in the past few weeks. She probably hated him almost as much as she'd hated Sutter. And Finster, who knew so well what she was capable of, must be terrified of her – especially in the state he was in.

“Okay, picking up the others, and then to Buenos Aires,” said Sam. The jet leaned to one side as it turned.

“Who's the kid?” Natasha asked, as she helped Laura into a seat.

“Randy Finster,” said Steve. “Coming with us is his reward for only shooting me _once_.”

“I'll remember that next time I need a favour from you,” said Natasha. She gave the young man a sideways look, then met Steve's gaze – she didn't trust Finster. Steve shrugged slightly. He didn't either, but... well, they'd see.

Natasha took Laura's arm. “How are...” she began, then frowned and squeezed the limb gently, clearly puzzled by something. Laura looked down and then rolled up the tattered, bloodstained cuff of her shirt. Underneath, the skin was intact, but oddly lumpy. Natasha squeezed it again, moving the lumps around with her fingers, and Steve realized what he was seeing. Laura had taken a lot of bullets and not all of them had passed right through. When they got stuck inside her body, her flesh had simply healed around them.

“I need to take them out with a knife,” said Laura quietly, as if ashamed of herself. “That's what Sarah always did.”

Natasha nodded and opened the first aid kit. “What were you doing in there?” she asked. “We told you to stay with the others.”

“She came for Sutter,” said Steve, saving Laura from having to reply. He didn't describe how she'd killed him. No matter what Sutter himself had been, the memory of Laura beating his severed head against the floor was going to stay with Steve for a long time.

Laura hung her head. “You were right,” she said to Natasha, with a tearful catch in her voice. “It didn't make it better.”

Natasha did not say she'd told her so. She just nodded silently, as if she'd known all along that this was a lesson each person had to learn alone, the hard way. She found a small set of tongs in the first aid kit and sterilized them in a flame. “Let's get the bullet out of Steve first,” she decided, “since he's the one who still has an open wound to do it through.”

She cut off the bottom of Steve's trouser leg, and he gritted his teeth and shut his eyes as tight as he could, gripping the edge of the seat so hard he dented it, as she pulled the bullet out and then quickly applied pressure when the wound began bleeding again. Meanwhile, Sam brought the jet over the hill and set it down on the road on the other side. The hatch opened, and they waited for the rest of the party. Steve hoped they'd be there. If Toby, Megan, and the Professor had gone into the compound as well...

But they hadn't. After a few minutes, they emerged from the trees with their things, and hurried to climb the ramp.

“Is Laura okay?” was the first question Megan asked as she got on board. Then she saw Laura, and went, “oh, good.”

“We couldn't stop her,” said Toby apologetically. “By the time we realized she'd slipped away she was already long gone.”

Laura had found an x-acto knife somewhere and was now sterilizing it as Natasha had done with the tongs. She said nothing in response to Toby and Megan – she simply began digging bullets out of her leg, one by one.

The Professor did not board, but waited at the bottom of the ramp. Natasha beckoned to him. “Francisco,” she said, “aren't you coming?”

“Thank you, but no,” he said. “I must return to Cordoba. Lots of work. If I get there in time I will keep my job!”

Natasha nodded. “Good point,” she agreed. “It would be nice if at least _one_ of us didn't get fired because of this.” Toby and Megan certainly had no jobs to go back to, and Natasha herself would probably have to put all her charisma and all her skill at lying into play if she wanted to keep her job at the ballet school.

“Good luck, then,” said Steve.

“Wave goodbye, Pablo,” the Professor told his monkey. The little animal paused in scratching itself and obeyed.

Then, with all seven of them accounted for, Sam in the pilot's seat and Natasha in the co-pilot's set a course for Buenos Aires. As they passed over the camp again, Steve could see that it was now in a state of utter confusion. Helicopters had been launched, but they seemed too busy circling the wreckage of the hospital to come after the plane, and even if they did, the quinjet's repulsors could easily outrun them.

Steve needed a moment to digest that... when these things ended, it was always a little hard to believe that they'd actually _won_. It wasn't a perfect victory. Fenstermacher might still be alive in there, though he no longer had a spare body waiting in the wings. Kinney needn't have died, nor the crew of the _Santo Eustáquio_ , nor Roger... Roger had really deserved a second chance. But at least the blowing-stuff-up had happened at an outpost in the Andes instead of in the middle of a major city, and Laura and Randy were going to get the help they needed. As victories went, Steve would take it.

“I need a vacation,” he said.


	23. The Immortal Brain

The idea of taking a vacation continued to occupy Steve's thoughts during the long, quiet flight to Buenos Aires, and the more he thought about it, the less feasible it seemed. Sutter was dead, and Festermacher had most likely been killed in the hospital collapse, but there were plenty of lesser operatives and scientists to be rounded up and arrested, not to mention somebody would have to figure out what to do with all the clones. Could they ever be real people, like Toby and Megan were trying to be? Or was there no hope for them? If the latter... what to  _ do _ with them?

All that could probably be left to the authorities in Argentina, but Steve himself would be needed elsewhere. HYDRA had the scepter – that had to be dealt with, and if they'd managed to hide this massive clone army operation in Argentina, who knew what else they might have going on in other corners of the world? So far Steve and Sam had been doing this alone, but when Steve thought about the  _ scale _ of what they'd discovered here, he thought they were going to need more help than just Natasha. Thor was supposed to be hanging out in London with Dr. Foster, and Stark and Banner were still working together last time Steve had heard. He didn't know where Barton was, but Natasha surely did. Maybe it was time to get the 'team', such as it was, back together.

And of course, there was Bucky. He was out there somewhere. Laura was on her way to help – Bucky deserved the same. Steve couldn't take a break until Bucky was found, he just  _ couldn't _ .

Natasha cleared her throat. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking,” she announced. “I've just received word from the Jorge Newberry Airport that they'll have a place for us to land in twenty-two minutes. The President and her cabinet are going to be meeting us there. International weather satellites apparently spotted the smoke plume from the collapsing hospital, and everybody's relieved to know that the volcano isn't erupting.”

“With the day HYDRA's been having, that might well be next on the list,” said Sam cheerfully.

Megan had been leaning on Toby's shoulder, apparently asleep – now she groaned and stretched. “We're going to be meeting a bunch of politicians?” she asked. “But we're all dirty and sweaty and...” she glanced at Laura, whose clothes were bloodstained and tattered from dozens of bullets. “Other things,” Megan finished tactfully. “I haven't had a shower in days. We look like hobos.”

“We look like heroes,” Natasha corrected her. “Trust me. That's how it works.”

“ _ Super _ heroes are normally slightly more colourful,” Sam admitted.

“Says the guy who helped take down Insight while dressed in black and gray,” Natasha said.

“Hey, at least I had wings,” Sam protested. “But something a little flashier might be nice, if we're working in places where I won't need the camo. I always liked red. How about you?” he arched a brow at Natasha. “Or are you gonna keep dressing like Emma Peel?”

“The guys I hang out with are  _ more _ than colourful enough to make up for me,” Natasha said. “Don't you think, Steve?”

“I'm the one who goes to work in a flag,” Steve chuckled. “I can't exactly disagree.”

Megan grimaced. “I'll be perfectly happy to go back to work in an apron, myself,” she said.

“Or a cab,” agreed Toby. “Sorry, Rogers, I just don't think we're superhero material.”

“That's not a bad thing,” Natasha said, and Steve had to agree. Superheroes saved the world, but they didn't get to  _ live _ in it. Toby, Megan, Laura, and Randy each had a  _ future _ . Looking at what he'd just decided were  _ his _ plans... Steve wasn't sure  _ he _ did.

They landed the quinjet just outside the terminal at the airport in Buenos Aires, rather to the surprise of Air Traffic Control, who had expected them to need the runway. Arrayed around the chosen gate were at least a dozen police cars, the president's limousine, an ambulance, three news crews, and hundreds of other people who had apparently just gathered around to see what all the fuss was about. Natasha shut down the engines and opened the hatch, while Megan tried frantically to neaten her hair.

By tacit agreement, Steve, Sam, and Natasha went down the ramp first. Megan had sewn up Steve's injured leg, but the first aid kit on board had no painkillers powerful enough to really dull the wound. Now that Steve was down from his adrenaline high, it was almost impossible to walk. He had to lean on Sam with one arm, while carrying his shield in the other. Natasha walked close beside him, ready to help catch if he keeled over.

He doubted any of the gathered crowd would have had the slightest idea who they were if he hadn't had the shield – but he did, and the whole world recognized Captain America's sheild as belonging to one of the heroes who'd defeated the Chi'Tauri invasion. That was probably why a massive cheer erupted from the crowd as they stepped onto the tarmac.

“I told you,” Natasha said, as Toby and Megan followed them down, while Laura reluctantly brought up the rear – Randy was just too tired and in too much pain to make a public appearance, and had chosen to stay aboard and let the medics come and get him. “People know heroes when they see them.”

“Captain Rogers!” A dark-haired woman wearing a blue and white sash over her ash-gray skirt suit stepped forward, offering a hand. “Our ambassadors from the United States and Brazil have told me about your investigation in progress,” she said, in flawless English. “I could not be more pleased to hear that it had a happy outcome!”

Steve thought about Roger and the crew of the  _ Santo Eustáquio _ , but accepted the handshake while continuing to lean on Sam. “Thank you, your Excellency,” he said, “but it's not quite over yet.” He looked back and nodded to Megan, who brought up the carrying case with the computer and address book, and put it in the president's hands. “These are the property of Dr. Wolfgang Fenstermacher,” Steve explained, “the HYDRA scientist who was in charge of the Andes base. He has been in contact with a number of members of Congress, including Vice President Quiroga, as he plans a coup.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve noticed a short man in a dark shirt and cream-coloured tie slip out of his position among the politicians and begin walking away. After a moment, a man with a mustache who'd been on the other side of the group followed. Both were stopped by the police.

“The investigation has already begn,” the President promised. “Néstor,” she called to an aide. An older man stepped up, and the President began to put the bag into his hands as Steve tensed. What made her so sure he was trustworthy?

“Captain Rogers,” she said. “My husband, Néstor.”

The man gave Steve a polite nod, and Steve relaxed. Of course the President would only give this task to somebody she trusted implicitly – and like the clones, the people he trusted most were  _ family _ .

“But I have not greeted your colleagues,” the President added. “This is obviously the Black Widow. A pleasure indeed to meet  _ two _ Avengers in one day!” She shook Natasha's hand, then turned to Sam. “And you, Sir.”

“Samuel Wilson,” Néstor supplied. “He was with Captain America at the Fall of SHIELD.”

“The Falcon,” said Sam, shaking the President's hand. He always grinned when he gave himself that title, as if he couldn't quite believe he had his own superhero name.

“Of course, of course, I remember.” The President nodded. “And your other colleagues, Mr. Stark and...” she stopped when she got to Megan and Laura, and could not match their faces with anyone associated with the Avengers.

“We're not colleagues,” Toby began quickly. “We're...”

Steve interrupted him. “This is Toby Strong, Megan Harper, and...” he paused, realizing that Laura had no surname. She would have to choose one in order to establish a legal identity for herself. “And Laura,” he finished, for want of anything better. “They may not be Avengers, but they're heroes just as much as we are, your Excellency.” He looked at the three and smiled. “We could never have come this far without their help.”

Megan managed an embarrassed smile, while Toby looked at his feet and Laura appeared to be trying to shrink into the pavement.

“There's also Randy Finster,” Steve added. “He's still on board – he got beat up pretty bad. He's one of Fenstermacher's own clones, and once he's recovered he'll probably have important information for us.” The medics were already on their way up the ramp to get him.

“I bid you all a very warm, if somewhat belated, welcome to Argentina,” the President said. “Won't you all have dinner with us tonight at the  _ Casa Rosada _ ?”

The  _ Casa Rosada _ was the official presidential palace of Argentina – having supper with her there would be the equivalent of eating at the White House. Steve's instinct, as it had been throughout this particular adventure, was to politely decline so that they could get on with other things... but the  _ other things _ he knew needed doing were all thousands of miles away. The police and government could look after most of the cleanup from here. He was the one who'd said he needed a vacation. He couldn't turn down what might be the closest thing he would get.

Just to be sure, he glanced over his shoulder at the others. The expressions on their faces told Steve everything he needed to know about what  _ they _ thought about the invitation.

“Thank you, your Excellency,” Steve said. “We would love to join you.”

* * *

After the past week of dirt and dust and fast food and constant travel, it was a little surreal to sit down to supper that evening and see everybody dressed up in nice clothes and fine jewelry, eating off china and crystal in a magnificent state dining room. Toby's suit and tie made him look so much like Stark that Steve kept doing double-takes, and Megan in a red dress with her hair done up... if she hadn't been blonde, he would probably have had a hard time remembering not to call her Peggy. Randy's head was still bandaged and he didn't look too steady on his feet, but he was able to sit up and eat, and make small talk with the other guests. He seemed surprisingly at ease, actually – but Steve remembered how easily he'd lied to their party outside Cheyenne Mountain and decided that Randy Finster was simply a natural actor.

Sam, the people person, enjoyed the evening very much, telling stories about their adventures and making everybody laugh. Natasha probably wasn't having as much fun, but she could at least pretend, trying not to be too obvious about rolling her eyes at the balding politician who was trying to flirt with her. Laura, on the other hand, was extremely uncomfortable. She had clearly never worn anything remotely like the black and gold evening gown somebody had found for her, and she ate very little and barely said a word all evening. Steve found himself observing that she looked more like a cornered animal now than she ever had in the HYDRA base. At least there, she'd known how to deal with the source of her anxiety.

Steve himself had a good understanding of how to act and which forks to use. He'd attended a dozen such thank you dinners during the war and remembered them rather fondly, although in hindsight they'd lost a bit of their gloss. Back then, each small victory had felt like actual  _ progress _ , rather than solving one problem by creating half a dozen more. Since getting out of the ice, Steve had been to receptions and charity dinners and meetings with foreign dignitaries, not to mention that ridiculous Oscar after-party Stark had made him go to, but none of those had ever felt like they were about something worth celebrating. If he didn't feel that this was a perfect victory, it was at least a decided improvement over  _ those _ .

The people of Buenos Aires certainly agreed. While the President plied her guests with wine and fine food, a public celebration was going on in the plaza outside the palace. Steve could hear the band playing and fireworks going off, and after dessert he limped out onto a balcony to watch. There was a large crowd gathered, laughing and dancing. How many of these people, he wondered, even knew what had happened? They might only know that the country had narrowly avoided a coup – butt that in itself was probably a good enough reason for a party. Argentina had been through a tumultuous century and nobody wanted more upset.

“You brooding again, Rogers?” asked Natasha as she came out to join him. “Keep that up and people will start to mistake you for Batman.”

Steve chuckled softly. “Well,  _ that's _ no good. If I start going around dressed in black and sometimes very dark gray,  _ you _ might have to wear a flag to work.”

She smiled appreciatively and leaned on the railing next to him, fiddling with the pearls someone had loaned her to go with a lacy black cocktail dress. It occurred to Steve, as it did every so often, that Natasha was utterly stunning and it was easy to see how she could so easily pry secrets out of otherwise intelligent men. In another time and place, he might easily have been one of them. “Natasha?” he asked.

“Yeah?” she raised her head from watching the party to look at him.

“How do _you_ figure out who to trust?”

“Easy,” she replied flippantly. “I just don't trust _anybody_.”

“No, I'm serious,” said Steve. “I didn't want to trust Cordero, and that was a mistake. I didn't want to trust Stark, and _that_ was a mistake... and then when the time came, I _did_ want to trust Roger and _that_ was a mistake, too. Is there some secret they taught you in Russia, for figuring out who's on your side?”

“No,” she said. “There's really not. It's a risk every time. Sometimes you're glad, and sometimes you're sorry, but there's no way to just look into somebody's eyes and immediately know what they're like. Part of _my_ training was how to fool the idiots who believe they _can_.”

“So how do I know I can trust _you_?” Steve asked, raising one eyebrow as he smiled at her.

“Because I keep telling you, you _can't_ ,” Natasha replied. “Why _do_ you trust me?”

“Because you've proved you can be trusted,” said Steve.

“And Sam?” she asked. “The same? But not Stark.”

“I trust Stark to be an egotistical jackass,” said Steve, but he was an egotistical jackass with his heart in the right place, and that counted for a certain amount. He wished there'd been a trick to it, though. It would be so much easier than having to live with the idea that the only way to find out if you could trust someone was to give them the chance to betray you. “That's a hell of a way to live,” he said.

“Thinking about getting out of the business?” asked Natasha.

“Nah,” he said. “Once you're in this, you're in it for life.” As Steve had observed a couple of weeks ago – had it only been a couple of weeks ago? – when Sam asked him the same question, he could not do that, because then he'd have nothing else. Steve was a soldier. He wasn't made for this world of gods and aliens, monsters and mutants and espionage, but that was the world he had to live in and the one he had to do his best to save.

“Where's everybody else?” Steve asked.

“Sam's down there somewhere.” Natasha gestured to the square. “I might join him – looks more fun than sitting up straight and taking small bites while a bunch of old men try to look down my dress. The rest I think all made excuses to go to bed early.” She glanced down at his leg. The doctors had given Steve a bit of morphine, but the bulge of bandages was visible under his trouser leg and the injury burned every time he put weight on it. His enhanced healing meant he'd be better in a few days, as he had from Laura stabbing his shoulder – but it was gonna be a hell of a few days.

“Are you gonna tell me to join them?” Steve asked.

“Would you listen to me if I did?” Natasha wanted to know.

“Right now?” He sighed. “Yeah, I think I would. We're gonna have to go after the scepter next, sooner better than later. I'd rather do it on a good night's sleep.”

“That's the most sensible thing I think I've heard you say in two weeks,” Natasha said. “Sleep tight, Rogers.”

“See you in the morning, Romanov,” he replied.

He found Toby, Megan, and Laura in an upstairs sitting room. Toby was in his shirt and pants with the jacket and tie draped over the back of his chair, while the girls had both changed into borrowed pajamas. All three had cups of _mate_ tea, and were watching a news broadcast about the day's events. Steve raised a hand to greet them, then went to lean on the back of Megan's chair to see the television while getting the weight off his injured leg. There seemed to be a mix of good news and bad – a few of the HYDRA members in the Argentinian Congress had managed to flee, but most had been rounded up for arrest and questioning. There was a few seconds footage of Diego Quiroga, shouting furiously at the reporters that he was being framed and the President was trying to set herself up as the next dictator. Policemen were trying to keep the public from throwing objects at him as he was bundled into a car.

“Where's Finster?” asked Steve. By the end of dinner, Randy Finster had been looking pale and ill, probably from over-exertion. Steve wouldn't have been surpised if he'd been taken to the hospital.

“Washroom,” said Megan, nodding towards a closed door. “I don't think he was feeling too good. Where are Sam and Black Widow?”

“Partying,” Steve said. “I don't have that kind of energy myself, but then, I'm not as young as I used to be.” It was meant as a joke, but it wasn't entirely untrue, either. Those seventy years Steve had skipped weighed pretty heavily on him sometimes. “So how does it feel to be heroes?” he asked.

It was no surprise by now that they were more embarrassed by the question than anything else. Laura just looked away at the windows and said nothing, perhaps on the assumption that Steve was not talking to her. Megan shook her head and became suddenly very interested in her tea. Toby was the first to speak.

“I'm not a hero,” he said. “I'm a coward. All I did was shoot a few guys from about a mile away. That's hardly heroic.”

“And I knocked out a soldier by treating him _exactly_ the way _I_ didn't want to be treated,” Megan said.

“You did what you _needed_ to do,” said Steve. “Like Natasha says, that's what we do, whether it's nice or not.”

“But I...” Megan began, only to be interrupted by the sound of breaking glass. Everybody turned to look towards the door Megan had indicated a moment ago as the bathroom Randy was in. It was as if a mirror or window had broken, and the pieces were now falling musically onto a hard surface, like tile or stone.

“That sounded bad,” Steve observed. If Randy wasn't well, he might have fallen or fainted. He limped over and tested the door – shut and locked. “Randy?” Steve called out, knocking gently. “You okay?”

He heard some muffled cursing. “I'm fine!” Randy said. “Go away!” Steve could hear the glass moving on whatever it had fallen onto, and then a sharp exclamation: “ _Scheiße_!”

Broken glass and swearing were _definitely_ bad, and a sudden worry welled up somewhere in Steve's gut. He'd decided to bring Randy along so that they kid could get out of HYDRA and have a real life like the other clones... but what if that wasn't what _Randy_ wanted? What if he had a different reason for wanting out from under Fenstermacher's thumb?

“Randy,” Steve said, “I'm coming in.” He took a deep breath, and then rammed the door with his good shoulder. The lock broke, and he stepped inside.

There was nobody there. The bathroom was tiny, just a powder room really, and unless Randy had curled up in the little cupboard under the sink, he was no longer there. The window was open, and the mirror, on the wall beside it, had broken, raining shards of glass into the sink and onto the floor. Steve crossed the the window, glass crunching under his shoes, and looked outside. Randy had torn down the curtains and used them and their cord to make himself a rope so he could climb down to the lawn below. One of the knots, however, hadn't held, and now he was holding on to the windowsill for dear life as he dangled thirty feet above the ground.

Steve grabbed his shirt to pull him up. “I got you!” he promised.

“Let me go!” Randy protested, struggling and twisting. Steve slipped, and hissed in pain as he banged his bad leg on the toilet. For a moment his vision blanked out red.

“What's going on?” came Toby's voice. Steve glanced over his shoulder and saw the three clones coming to investigate. Good – they could help.

“Give me a hand!” Steve ordered.

Toby ran up to help him pull the struggling Randy back into the room, while Laura and Megan stood in the doorway watching. “I'll call a doctor,” Megan decided.

“No, I'm _fine_!” Randy insisted, annoyed and frustrated.

“You're not fine if you're climbing out a window!” Steve protested, kneeling down to be on Randy's eye level as he sat him on the toilet seat. “Where were you trying to go?”

Randy clearly didn't want to answer. His eyes flicked to the window, then to the door behind Steve and Toby, where Megan and Laura were standing. He was looking for a way out, Steve thought, like he was surrounded by enemies. Had Steve trusted the wrong person _again_?

If so, there might still be time to talk him out of it. “Randy,” Steve said. “What are you trying to accomplish? Why did you come with us in the first place, if not to...”

He stooped speaking as something bit painfully into his bad leg, just above the bandages. This time it was white that blotted out the word, and he didn't know if he were pushed or simply lost his balance when he fell against Toby, knocking both of them against the vanity. The side of his head hit the marble countertop hard, and his hand went to his injured leg. There was a big shard of glass embedded in it. Randy had stabbed him with a piece of the broken mirror.

“What the fuck are you doing?” shrieked Megan.

“ _Dornröschen_!” Finster bellowed.

Steve's vision came back in time to see Megan go down, clutching her head. Toby seemed to hold out for half a second longer, enough time to reach for her, but then he, too, slumped to the floor next to Steve. Laura put her claws out, but suddenly Randy pulled out a gun. There was a silencer on the muzzle, but the shot still seemed deafening in the tiny bathroom as he put a bullet squarely in Laura's left eye. She staggered backwards and fell on the carpet.

Steve got to his knees, cutting his hands on the mirror glass, and grabbed Randy by the ankles as he tried to flee the room. The two of them fell. Randy kicked him in the teeth, then grabbed Megan by the hair and pressed his firearm into her neck.

“Let me go!” Finster ordered. “Let me go, or I'll kill her next! You know that face, Captain Rogers! Do you really want to see blood all over it?”

Steve let go and raised his hands. He _had_ , in fact, seen blood on Peggy's face before. At least some of it had been hers. But that was irrelevant – he had to salvage this situation. Were there still bullets in the gun? Probably not. If there had been, Randy would surely have killed Steve first. He'd saved his one shot for Laura, and put it in a place where it could go straight into her brain and kill her before she could heal. The gun was probably empty... but was he going to bet Megan's life on that?

He had to stall. He needed more time. “Randy,” Steve began, “you really don't have to...”

“You've mistaken me for somebody else,” Randy interrupted him. “Number Five is, as you pointed out yourself earlier, already dead.”

Steve froze. The bandages on his head... the mark of the IV line in his arm... _of course_. Fenstermacher had been badly injured in the helicopter crash, so he'd discarded his old body and moved on to the spare. Steve could not possibly turn Randy against Fenstermacher. Randy had _become_ Fesntermacher.

“I'm an idiot,” said Steve.

“Yes, you are,” Fenstermacher agreed, backing away with Megan and the gun. “If you'd caught up with me in the Black Forest, I would have told you then what I'll tell you now: I don't get caught. I don't get captured. I get away and start over somewhere else. I,” he said proudly, “am the Immortal Brain!”

Steve was still trying to think when he saw a flicker of motion from Megan. He barely had time to register that her eyes had opened – then she wrapped her legs around Fenstermacher's and slammed him face-down into the floor. “ _Jahrhundert_!” she shouted, but Toby was already getting up. He jumped over Fenstermacher and ran into the sitting room.

“Hey!” he shouted, throwing the French doors open to call into the hallway. “Hey, somebody! We're being attacked! Help! Help!”

Megan wrenched the gun out of Fenstermacher's hands and got up. Behind her, Laura sat up and dug the bullet out of her eye socket with one finger, then wiped blood away on the sleeve of her pajamas before balling her fists and extending her claws with a very ominous metallic sound. Steve got up as much as he could, prepared to keep Fenstermacher from going out the window again no matter how much it hurt.

But it might not be Fenstermacher he needed to stop, he realized. Megan had said she didn't have it in her to shoot somebody, but her expression was grim and her hands were steady, finger on the trigger. And Laura... Laura had killed a man voluntarily and in cold blood just earlier that day...

“Don't worry, Captain Rogers,” said Megan. “We're not going to hurt him.”

“Not unless he _makes_ us,” said Laura firmly. She was blinking hard, but her eye was already growing back. Was even her _skull_ plated with metal?

From out in the room they heard Toby's voice again. “In here! In here!” He reappeared, with two members of the president's bodyguard who'd come rushing to answer his shouts. They dragged Fenstermacher back to his feet and handcuffed him.

Soon, the room was full of people – police, medics, government employees, and various of the dinner guests wondering what was happening _now_. Steve and the others were escorted into another room so that a doctor could look at their injuries, while Fenstermacher was escorted out to be locked up. Steve shook his head – that _should_ have happened seventy years ago, but no, the army had to crown his _tooth_. He hoped somebody involved in that decision was still alive somewhere to find out just what had happened when they prioritized public relations over _fighting the goddamn war_.

Megan had been perfectly calm while she'd been holding the gun. Now, sitting across from Steve and trying to drink a glass of water somebody had given her, she was shaking violently. Steve observed that her combat training had given her the _instincts_ of somebody like Peggy, but the underlying psychology just wasn't there.

“You were faking?” he asked her.

“Yeah,” she said, smiling weakly. “I figured if he thought I was out, I could catch him off-guard.”

“I just played along,” Toby said. “You still think I'm the hero type, when I'm the guy who ran off and shouted for help?”

“Hell, yes,” said Natasha's voice. “That's the most heroic thing I think any of us did today.”

Steve looked up to see the crowd of personnel parting so that Natasha and Sam could enter the room. “Where the hell were you two?” Steve asked.

“Sorry,” said Sam. “Psychic powers are on the fritz.”

“We came as soon as we heard something was happening,” Natasha said, “but it looks like you guys had it handled just fine.”

“We could have used a hand,” Steve said.

“Looks more to me like you could use a leg,” Natasha observed.

Steve's leg was up on a footstool while a nurse worked on it. He looked down at it, and then, out of sheer relief, he started laughing.

Toby, Laura, Sam, and Natasha all stared at him, confused and worried – Natasha in particular looked almost offended, as if about to protest that her joke hadn't been _that_ funny. Megan, however, joined right in.

“I'm sorry!” she giggled. “I'm okay! I just... _the Immortal Brain_!”

“What?” asked Sam.

“That's the villain name he gave himself,” Toby explained, not laughing at all. “The Immortal Brain.” He thought for a moment. “It must sound scarier in German.”

“You mean  _ Der Unsterbliche Gehirn _ ?” asked Natasha.

Toby shrugged. “Or not.”

Sam began laughing then, too, and Steve shut his eyes and leaned his head back on the chair, finally feeling like the situation, or at least the part of it _he_ was involved in, really was over. He couldn't say that everything was going to be okay – the world didn't work that way. Nothing was ever really _all okay_ , but Steve himself could now take what he'd learned from this experience and move on to the next one. There was always a next one, and there always would be, and Steve was just going to have to live with that.


	24. Homecoming

In the morning the capture of Fenstermacher was big news, but there was more as well: the military had arrived at the base in the Andes, only to find the entire place burned to the ground. HYDRA had evacuated, taking only what they could carry. They'd left the dead where they lay, and torched the buildings, equipment, and paperwork that they had to leave behind. All the Argentinian soldiers could do was put on fire safety suits and sift through the ashes for evidence.

By evening, a group of former HYDRA employees had been caught trying to sneak across the border into Chile. They were now in custody, but the Chilean government refused to send them back to Argentina unless in exchange for a fugitive of their own who'd been granted asylum in that country. That was going to be a mess of conflicting politics, Steve realized with a sinking heart. The people of the twenty-first century loved to talk about how much _progress_ humanity had made, and yet they still couldn't settle down and cooperate in the name of the common good. For about five minutes he considered crossing the border himself to go get them, but then decided the best thing would be to leave well enough alone.

What had happened to the rest of the clone soldiers was unclear. One man interviewed suggested that they may have been burned along with the equipment used to create them. As awful as the theory was, part of Steve hoped it was true. He didn't want to have to worry about HYDRA terrorizing the world using assassins with his face.

Steve and the others stayed in Buenos Aires as guests of the President and her family for the rest of the week while the cleanup continued. They were wined and dined and expensively entertained, with trips to the Teatro Colón and the Museum of Latin American Art. They met ambassadors and celebrities, and were given ridiculous gifts – the most absurd of these was a replica of Steve's shield presented to him by the Congress, made out of normal metal that weighed a ton and went _ping_ when struck, painted blue and white with a sun in the center in imitation of the Argentinian flag. It was all Steve could do to accept it without laughing out loud.

Natasha and Sam both seemed to enjoy the attention – especially Sam, who spent a lot of time beaming as he signed autographs for children – but Steve found it exhausting, and he could see it wearing on Toby, Megan, and Laura as well. By the end of the week the three clones were excusing themselves from excursions. Toby spent most of his time at the El Ateno Grand Splendid, a bookshop built into an old theatre, while Megan and Laura hung out in the Botanical Gardens, where Laura had taken a liking to the feral cats who lived there. It was probably a relief to everybody when Steve decided it was time to return to the States.

He 'accidentally' left the new shield in the Casa Rosada. He was pretty sure it would look better on the president's wall than on his.

It was a Monday afternoon when they returned to the airport and, in front of a waving and cheering crowd, boarded the quinjet for the trip home. Toby flew and Natasha took the co-pilot's seat, leaving Steve, Sam, Megan, and Laura to strap themselves in the back. It would be about an eighteen-hour trip, and Steve was planning on sleeping through as much of it as possible.

“Everybody looking forward to getting back to work?” he asked.

“ _Real_ work, yes,” said Megan. “If that was hero-ing, I'm not planning on doing any more of it for a long time.”

“All aboard!” said Toby. He closed the hatch, and the quinjet roared into the sky.

For a while, nobody spoke – and then Megan said, “honestly, I only played dead because I couldn't think of anything else. The whole time I could feel that gun poking into me I was so scared I felt like I was going to pee my pants. If any of _us_ was a hero this week, it was _Roger_.”

There was another quiet moment, then Toby said, “Roger?”

“Yes!” Megan put a hand over her eyes. “Of all the things I never thought I'd say... but he helped Captain Rogers escape and that was way braver and more difficult than anything _we_ had to do.”

“Of course Roger was a hero,” said Sam, putting a friendly hand on her shoulder. “He hid it well, but it was in his genes.”

“No. It was in his head,” said Steve. Roger had been a hero because he'd _wanted_ to be. _You're superheroes_ , he'd said to them in Rio. _You don't need me_. He'd never gotten it, though... right to the end of his short, wasted life, Roger had never understood what being a hero actually was.

Steve did, or at least he thought he did. A _hero_ was somebody who always did the right thing, no matter what. It was something Steve aspired to, but he didn't know what the right thing _was_ half the time, and it sometimes wasn't compatible with just desperately trying to survive whatever HYDRA kept throwing at him. If he had to think of somebody who actually qualified... well, maybe Thor. There had to be a _reason_ that hammer considered him 'worthy'.

“ _I've_ never felt like a hero,” Steve said.

The others all looked at him. Natasha was familiar with his feelings about this, and Sam had probably suspected – but Toby, Megan, and Laura were all astonished. Toby actually turned his chair around, away from the controls, to make sure he'd heard right.

“You're Captain America,” said Megan.

Steve shrugged. “I think the only time I ever felt like a hero was the day I brought the 107th home, and even then I had a bunch of people around who were happy to tell me I was actually an idiot. Mostly I was just doing a job that needed doing. The comics and the movies and all that, those were fun,” he admitted. Sometimes they _had_ gone to his head a little. “But nobody who actually _knew_ me thought that was me.”

“Yeah, but...” Toby began.

Natasha cut him off – she'd figured out where Steve was taking this. “Then you wake up and it's 2012, and the comics and the movies are all anybody knows, and they give you that ridiculous costume with all the pouches on the belt and tell you to go fight aliens because you're _Captain America_ ,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Steve. “Because people have this idea of who I'm supposed to be now, and sometimes even _I_ think I have to be that. But I don't know who that guy _is_ , really, or if he's even human, and I don't know who _I_ am, either.”

He looked at Toby and Megan, and he _knew_ they understood. Toby was not and could never be Tony Stark, and Megan was not and could never be Peggy Carter – but they had a choice in the matter that Steve didn't. They could forget those expectations now and go be their own people, like Rudy Finster had tried to before the nearest thing he had to family caught up with him and silenced him. Steve did not have that option, and he never would.

Toby laughed. Steve had only heard him laugh once, the day they met, and it had been brief, bitter laughter. Now there was real warmth in it. “We're _all_ clones,” he said, turning back to the controls. “All are one, and one is all.”

“Is this what you guys did after saving New York?” Sam asked Steve. “Sit around talking about the philosophical definition of heroism while the rest of the world had a victory party?”

“No,” said Steve. “We went out for shawarma, and then as far as I remember, we all took a goddamn nap.” 

* * *

 

Steve, Sam, and Natasha's ultimate destination was Avengers Tower, but before they could go there, they had to make a slight detour. About fifty miles north of Manhattan was the town of North Salem, home to Xavier's School for Gifted Youth. They'd sent a message ahead that they'd be coming, and when they landed on the helipad on the school roof, three people were there waiting for them. One was a bald man in a wheelchair whom Steve recognized from photographs as Professor Charles Xavier himself. Next to him was a tall woman with long auburn hair, and behind them, a wiry man with bushy sideburns who seemed to be deliberately keeping his distance.

Steve and the others stayed at the foot of the quinjet's ramp while Natasha led Laura up to meet the three mutants. Laura was clearly terrified. They'd gotten her hair trimmed and the rest of the bullets out of her, and today she was dressed in jeans and a black and red sweater, with a plaid scarf to keep the early March chill off her neck. She no longer looked like a threat, or even like somebody who'd get second looks walking down the street, but her steps were hesitant and she kept looking back over her shoulder at the jet, as if to flee back to the relatively familiar at any moment.

“Natasha,” Professor Xavier said. “Good to see you again.”

“You as well, Professor,” she replied with a smile.

The Professor nodded and turned to Laura. “And this must be our new student,” he said. “Welcome. You're a little older than most of our pupils here, but we're always happy to teach anyone who wants to learn.” He offered a hand to her. “I'm Professor Xavier, and this is Dr. Grey,” he nodded to the woman. “And you are?”

Laura took his hand as if afraid it might be red-hot, which at a school for mutants was probably a possibility. “Laura,” she said. She was silent for a moment, then added, “Kinney. My name is Laura Kinney.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Kinney,” said Xavier, shaking her hand.

Laura didn't reply right away, but then she took a deep breath and blurted her next words out as if she worried she'd change her mind halfway through. “I've done some terrible things!” she said. “I knew they were wrong but I did them anyway! Some of them Sutter made me do, but some of them I did all by myself!”

Exactly what reaction she was expecting, Steve didn't know – but Xavier just nodded gravely. “So have I, Miss Kinney. As much as we evolve, in the end we are all of us only human.” He gave her hand a squeeze and smiled gently at her. “Come,” he added. “There's somebody here who's quite eager to meet you.”

He turned his chair and gestured to the man with the sideburns – and Steve realized that even if he hadn't already know that Laura was a slightly botched clone of this man, he would have immediately known they were related. They had the same hazel eyes, the same compact, muscular build, and the same chisel-edged nose. The man had a little bit of gray in his hair but otherwise did not appear to be much older than forty, but then, if he had the same healing ability Laura did, perhaps it was surprising if he aged at all.

“Laura Kinney,” said Xavier, “this is Logan Howlett.”

Howlett smiled nervously. “Hi,” he said. “I, uh, guess I'm your father. More or less.”

Laura didn't know what to make of that. She just nodded and stood still, eyes down – but then Howlett put a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up to meet his gaze.

“Hey, you're gonna be okay,” he told her. “If Xavier can help _me_ , he can help _anybody_. Okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered, and then surprised everybody – possibly including herself – by throwing her arms around Howlett and hugging him. He stood there startled for a moment, and then cautiously returned the embrace.

Steve smiled. Laura would have a difficult learning curve ahead of her, but she was smart and tough and determined and she would have good help, and his gut told him that she was going to be okay. Whatever else Steve might _not_ trust, he did trust his gut – and if Laura would be okay, then so would Bucky. Bucky, after all, hadn't been raised in a laboratory by a bullying HYDRA scientist, although he'd surely been manipulated by his share of them. He wouldn't have to _find_ himself, only _remember_ himself... it was _Steve_ who would have to find him first.

* * *

 

From Xavier's it was only a very brief flight back to Manhattan. “I should have asked,” Toby said on the way, “but Stark's not gonna be there waiting for us, is he?”

Even when he no longer had to worry about whether Stark might not be on his side, Steve could understand where his nervousness came from. Stark's ego might not be able to take the idea that he'd been duplicated without his knowledge – and would probably not adjust well at _all_ to the discovery that Toby was, really, nothing at all like him.

Natasha checked her phone. “Pepper says _she's_ waiting for us, but she didn't mention him.”

 _Of course Sir will be present_ , said the computer. _He is interested to meet you, Mr. Strong. He says it will be an opportunity to finally determine whether he is, in fact, able to live with himself._

Toby groaned. “Great. If I jump out now, how far to the ground?”

“Not allowed,” said Natasha. “We don't have any parachutes, and _you're_ not Captain America.”

"Stark doesn't seem like a bad guy," Megan offered. "I mean, he's kind of a jerk on TV, but he's still a superhero, right?”

“No, it's not that, it's more like...” Toby sighed heavily. “Oh, hell with it, I might as well. I mean, he obviously already knows about me, so I'm going to _have_ to talk to him sooner or later. Probably better get it over with.” He sounded as if he were talking about having a tooth pulled.

About forty-five minutes after leaving Xavier's, they landed in the Tower hangar and headed down the glass steps into the sitting room. Pepper Potts was in one of the leather armchairs with a tablet in her lap, but she looked up at the sound of their footsteps, then put her computer aside and came to greet them.

“Pepper!” Natasha hurried down the stairs, and the two women hugged one another.

“Natasha, you cut your hair again!” Miss Potts observed. “I've always thought short looked better on you.”

“You think so?” Natasha reached up and tugged on a lock. “Megan did it for me.” She gestured for Megan to come join them. “This is Megan Harper, former SHIELD medic and bird whisperer. Megan, this is Virginia Potts, CEO of Stark Industries.”

“Hello.” Megan shook Pepper's hand with a slightly awed smile, as if in the presence of an admired celebrity.

“Nice to meet you, Megan,” Miss Potts replied. “And this must be Toby,” she added, turning to the second clone. She made absolutely no mention of his resemblance to Stark, although she of all people must have noticed it at once. “Natasha's email explained who you two are,” she said, “and I've had a word with some of our lawyers. We're going to see if we can get you legal birth certificates and social insurance numbers, and I'm going to arrange for you to meet with a career counselor.”

“Really?” asked Megan, surprised and delighted.

“Absolutely,” Miss Potts assured her. “I'm told there are others? If you can get in contact with them, I'm sure we can...”

Behind her, the elevator doors opened, and a voice said, “this is a new look for you, Cap!”

That was the moment when Steve changed his mind – Toby really _didn't_ look or sound like Stark at _all_. The face and voice might have been the same, but the way they _used_ their bodies, the way they walked, spoke, and smiled, was so entirely different that nobody could possibly have confused the two of them.

Toby stood up very straight and adjusted his clothes, prepared for the worst – but for the moment, at least, Stark ignored him completely and pulled his red sunglasses down his nose to give Steve a critical look-over. They'd managed to wash _most_ of the purple stain out of his hair, but there was a definite tint left. Nobody in Argentina had commented on it, but Stark always had to point out the embarrassing stuff.

“Pink's not your colour, Rogers,” said Stark. “If you even _are_ Rogers.”

“What do you mean, if I even _am_ Rogers?” asked Steve.

“Well, if half of what I've seen on the news is accurate, this whole caper was about clones – specifically, clones of _you_ ,” Stark said, eyes narrowed in theatrical suspicion. “So how do I know you weren't replaced by a double while nobody was looking? Did you guys ever leave him alone?” He turned to Natasha and Sam.

Sam frowned, tapping his chin. “Come to think of it, we _did_ both stay with the plane while _he_ went to turn the power off, and he _did_ very nearly facilitate Fenstermacher's escape for him!” He and Natasha turned to look at Steve, both mimicking Stark's comically serious expression.

For a moment Steve wanted to object that it wasn't funny. Then he reminded himself that he'd spent the past month mistrusting everything and everybody, and realized he didn't have a leg to stand on. “Okay, yeah,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I deserved that.”

“I'll say you did,” Stark agreed. “When Romanov said you two were gonna take the plane and fight Nazis, I thought maybe you were gonna drop in on a skinhead meetup in Texas somewhere and be back the next day! Next thing I know, you've saved Brazil and you didn't even invite me?” He pouted.

“It was Argentina,” said Steve.

“Technically, Brazil was next,” Sam said. “So we saved Brazil, too.”

“And we're not finished,” Steve said. He reached into his jacket and pulled out the photograph of Fensteracher and his friend. “Recognize this?”

He could see the change in Stark's expression as he recognize the scepter. Stark himself had been in closer contact with it than any other member of the team except for Barton. “Yes, I do. Where was that taken?”

“I don't know,” Steve said. “But we're gonna have to find out.”

“Take a scan,” Stark ordered the computer. A hologram popped up with an enlarged version of the photo, which a moment later was enhanced to form a life-sized wireframe model of the stone wall and windows behind the two men.

 _The window architecture appears to be 17_ _th_ _Century Ottoman_ , said JARVIS helpfully. _The incomplete carvings in the wall blocks suggest they were re-used from some older structure, perhaps an Orthodox church or monastery destroyed or repurposed by the Turkish army. Their style indicates they probably originated in Sokovia or Macedonia._

Stark nodded slowly. He pointed to himself, then at Steve and Natasha in turn, as if counting to three. Three Avengers out of six.

“Bruce is doing Doctors Without Borders with his ex in Panama,” said Tony. “That's four.”

“You should have said something,” said Steve. “We could have picked him up on the way.”

Tony looked sideways at him, “Maybe if somebody had _asked_ me, I would have.”

“I know where Clint is,” said Natasha. “That just leaves Thor.”

“Jane will be able to contact Thor,” Pepper said. “I don't know where Jane is, actually, but Kelly will.”

“Who's Kelly?” asked Steve.

“Jane's sister.” Pepper already had her phone out. “She works for a zoo in California.”

Natasha's face lit up. “The one who got mistaken for me!”

“Yes, the one who got mistaken for you!” Pepper agreed with a smile.

Steve suspected there was a hell of a story there. He'd have to ask about it sometime.

Toby had been standing in the middle of this conversation looking thoroughly confused. He'd mentally prepared himself for his meeting with Stark to go very badly – but here it seemed to simply not be happening at all. Could it be, Steve wondered, that Stark simply hadn't _noticed_ the kid? That seemed unlikely, but if it were true, Steve had no idea how to tactfully draw his attention to him. And Toby had no idea how to respond to _any_ of this.

Finally, perhaps unable to stake the suspense any longer, Toby cleared his throat. “Uh... Mr. Stark?”

Stark had been rotating the hologram to examine it – now he looked up as if noticing Toby for the first time. “Well, who's _this_ handsome devil?” he asked. “So you're Stark two point oh, huh?”

Toby was already sorry he'd spoke. “Toby. My name is Tobias Strong. Don't worry,” he added, “I'm not going to...”

“Strong.” Stark shook his hand and clapped him on the shoulder. “Welcome to Stark Industries!”

“Oh, you don't have to...” Toby began, but Stark cut him off again.

“You bet I do,” he said. “You're wasted driving a cab, and I'm not letting a genius of my caliber work for anybody else! Once this gets out, every tech company in the country is going to be _drooling_ over you. I've got to snap you up while there's still time.”

“I'm not...” Toby protested helplessly. “I mean... aren't I a security risk?” He looked more uncomfortable and bewildered than Steve had ever seen him.

“Not as long as Pepper's signing your paycheques,” Stark assured him cheerfully. “We can bond over bourbon later...”

“I don't drink,” said Toby.

“... but first I'd like to hear a non-Fox-News version of what the hell went on down there,” Stark said. “Nazis and clone armies and volcanoes.... if I hadn't thrown a nuke through a wormhole at an alien invasion a couple of years ago I'd be calling bullshit on the whole thing. Everybody have a seat. I'll order food, and then we can Assemble the Avengers and get to work tracking down this scepter thing. I'm gonna need a new Suit!” He looked at Pepper. She smiled and gave a slight nod.

Toby sat down in the nearest chair, looking as if it were only sheer luck that he landed on the cushion instead of on the floor.

Steve smiled in spite of himself. This was exactly what he'd worried would happen if they talked to Stark, that he would just waltz in and take over. But no, he was definitely not HYDRA – and Steve was glad to be back among people he knew he could _trust_.


End file.
